


Finders Keepers

by Nethvester



Category: Finder no Hyouteki | Finder Series
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-10 00:22:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 7
Words: 30,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18649126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nethvester/pseuds/Nethvester
Summary: April is National Child Abuse Prevention Month in the United States.Also the Reason I haven't posted anything for Shatoru or Nanto Ito in the past month.The Finder Series (Viewfinder), is written by, illustrated by, and belongs to Yamane Ayano. I own none of her characters and make no money from this fan fiction.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------





	1. Curfew and Punishment

He was late again. The thought sent chills down his spine causing him to shiver far more than the cold wind that seeped past his thin t-shirt and thread bare jeans. He mentally counted the night's earnings he held tightly in his fist hopefully it would be enough for the boss to overlook him missing curfew. He limped quickly down the alley ignoring the other gang members as he moved past them but that didn't mean all of them ignored him. The blonde just passed the edge of a large trash dumpster when he tripped. He threw his arms out to break his fall only to have the small leather coin purse he'd held snatched from his fingers.  
  
He looked up from the ground in panic, "Yuri-san! That's mine!"  
  
As usual the tall Russian was dressed nicer than the other gang members around him. His hair was neat and his button up shirt clean and pressed with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. He was significantly taller and more muscular than the boy. He kicked the youngster in the ribs and laughed as the boy coughed trying to get air back into his lungs, "Finders keepers, Aki. You know the rules. You dropped it; now it's mine." He opened the pouch and laughed again as he removed the four ten thousand yen notes. "Quite the haul for your skinny ass."  
  
The boy jumped to his feet, "Give it back! It's not yours!" He tried to jump for the pouch only to fall backwards from the older man's shove. He hit the concrete hard feeling the bruise develop on his rear.  
  
Yuri glared down at him, "Yours? You forget yourself. This belongs to the boss you just earn it." He stuffed the bills into his back pocket, "Tonight though it belongs to me." He bent down and grabbed the boy's wrist in a crushing grip. "Come along, you've already missed curfew; too bad you don't have anything to show for the night." He dragged the now whimpering boy further down the alley, past another tall muscular man who nodded at Yuri and ushered them through a steel door.  
  
Aki quieted when the door shut behind them. Swallowing his whimpers as the boss' second in command half dragged him down the dark hallway. It wasn't because the grip on his arm had eased or even the fact that his skin had started to warm up from its chilled state. No he became silent because nothing annoyed the boss more than what he called whining and back talk.  
  
There had been a time that Aki had defied the man. Running away, actually talking and yelling back, he'd even once had the audacity to try and punch the man, but he'd missed. Defiance was always met with a belt; the man had several he chose from. Not that the man required reasons to dish out a beating. He was as likely to belt Aki as he was to drink which meant practically every day. Aki, however, had learned the man's habits. Bring him a healthy wad of cash and the beatings would be lighter. Come empty handed and a thorough belting was the least of your concerns.  
  
The hall way wasn't very long and soon enough Yuri was pulling the blonde boy up the rough, thread bare carpeted stairs. The old building used to be a cheap motel. The down turn in the economy had left the building abandoned once the bank had repossessed it from the original owners. How the boss acquired the deed was something Aki didn't know. All Aki knew was that the boss lived on the second floor. Four of the old rooms roughly joined by knocked out walls producing a small living room, a large awkward bath next to a jury-rigged kitchen, and a strangely shaped bed room. Next door was the boss' play room.  
  
It was to that room that Yuri dragged the youngster. Aki shook in fear as the older man jerked his thin t-shirt over his head before all but throwing his body across a wooden saw-horse. He swallowed the bile the rough treatment his gut received from landing as Yuri tied his wrists, one to each leg of the furniture.  
  
He almost squirmed as Yuri yanked down his pants and tied his ankles as well. The position left him leaning over the saw-horse almost in half. His head nearly touched the ground and he'd been forced to his tiptoes in order to stay balanced with the way his ankles were tied. His buttocks were shoved high and he shivered when the older man pulled down a thick piece of leather and laid it across them.  
  
He watched upside down as the boss came into the room. The man walked around the saw-horse twice tugging on bindings as he went. Then he stopped at Aki's head. "You know why you're being belted boy?"  
  
Aki wanted to scream and rant at the man. He'd done nothing wrong and Yuri had stolen all the money he had earned. He'd done as the man had asked and how was this possible fair? Yet, the fight had long been beaten out of him and he just nodded, "I failed to bring in any earnings to pay my way and came in after curfew."  
  
The man grabbed a fist full of Aki's hair and yanked it so the boy was forced to look up at him awkwardly, "Why do we have curfew, Aki?"  
  
"To protect us. To keep us from being taken and shut up with rapist and murders, sir." Aki sometimes wondered if prison might not be better. Prison at least would feed him three times a day and surely he'd get clothes that fit maybe even ones that were warm.  
  
"That's right, boy. Yet, you keep missing it? Why? Why, Akihito? What would your grandparents say? I'd have to go all the way to their shrine to tell them the horrible news. Who would pay off their debt if the police took you?"  
  
That was the clincher. For years the man had held his grandparent's safety over his head. It meant nothing that he no longer remembered their faces. Just the threat that the man would go near them, that if Aki didn't obey and conform to the man's twisted wishes meant their lives were in danger made Aki compliant in ways no beating ever could.  
  
Aki knew the man wasn't looking for him to respond and he made no moves as the man shoved his head back down and stood. Aki couldn't help the flinch as the man pulled the thick leather strap from his back, though. He knew the man had noticed when the voice said, "Ten, for missing curfew, Ten for no earnings, and I think another ten to remind you who you belong to."  
  
Aki braced for the first blow only to quell in horror when the boss handed the belt to Yuri. The morning was going to be much worse than he'd first believed. The boss was cruel. Aki knew he'd have bruises upon bruises whenever the man belted him. Yuri was brutal. The last time the boss had allowed the older man to administer Aki's punishment the man had cracked two of Aki's ribs and his ankle had still not healed from when the man had told him he knew how to prevent Aki from ever running away again.  
  
The boss lit a cigarette and inhaled before saying, "Count them boy. Say the numbers loud. Every time you miss one I'll have Yuri start over from the beginning." 


	2. Largess and Inventory

The limo had been left without any guards. It was alone, parked in the dark underground parking deck on the floor Aki knew wasn't covered by working cameras. He watched the vehicle for nearly an hour and finally worked up the nerve to get closer and check it out.   
  
It took time to cross from his hiding spot to the sleek car. Yuri's beating still stinging his muscles even though it had been almost four days. His limp was worse as well. Several of the strikes had landed on his bad ankle and Aki wouldn't be surprised to find another bone or two was cracked in it. He kept his combat boots tied tightly around the triple layer of socks he'd put on every morning since the event. It helped, a little. Yuri had been particularly brutal.   
  
It wasn't the beating that caused him to dare the limo, though. It was the visitors that the boss had last night that scared Aki into breaking and entering, something he'd successfully avoided since the boss had started sending him out to earn his keep. They were not unusual as visitors, in truth the two had visited before. It was the amount of time the boss had required Aki to server them that had him worried. That and the comment the boss had made to them as they left.   
  
Aki didn't' think the boss knew he'd over heard him but the statements still rung through his mind. Aki was getting too old and he couldn't earn as much as he used to. Another concerned cop had been by and the boss didn't like that kind of trouble. It was time to pass the boy on to a new owner. The visitors would be sent an invitation to the auction. He looked around the parking garage a second time before testing the limo's backdoor handle.   
  
Asami couldn't remember the last time he ran this fast. Nor the last time he felt this desperate. The trap, laid by his rivals and circumvented by his trusted second and third so they could turn it on the responsible party had just been entered by a child.   
  
The plan had been simple. The canister of poison gas set to fill the limo when either of back doors opened and then closed had been diluted with sleeping gas. Had Asami been a kinder man he might have replaced deadly gas fully. His enemies however had picked a particularly brutal poison and while the small amount he'd left wouldn't kill a man, he had ensured there was enough to make the man hurt. It could kill the tiny blonde headed to the seemingly unwatched vehicle, though.   
  
They'd repaired the broken cameras unobtrusively, meaning that unless you knew where to look they still appeared cracked and unplugged. Asami didn't know who was trying to kill him but he and Kirishima had figured out that many of the coded messages being sent to and from Sion's computers contained locations and times, though they'd still not finished decoding the other. The location was always this old abandoned car park in this seedier part of Tokyo. The time was always between four and five in the morning.   
  
They'd tired of trying to find the mole through the computer network, though they had people still working that angle, and had decided to try and trap the man instead. This decision came less than a day after Asami had decided that his regular limo needed a good cleaning before he used it again and switched to his silver BMW for several days. The detailing crew they used for his fleet found the canister. It was only luck that one of them had not shut the doors after they opened them.   
  
So they'd tested the contents, diluted them, and sent the coded message out into the network that a meeting would be taking place this night. Suoh reset the trap after driving them to the location. Twelve of Asami's best men lay hidden in the surrounding buildings while he, Suoh, and Kirishima watched the floor's cameras from a makeshift office across the street.   
  
The first sign something was going to go wrong was the blonde mop of hair that exited the stairwell farthest from the limo. They'd not posted anyone inside to prevent from spooking their quarry. And the men around the perimeter couldn't see any external entrance from the street where the boy could have gotten into the building, meaning that their earlier sweep of place had missed some sort of access tunnel.   
  
"Asami-sama the boy has opened the door and entered the back seat." Kirishima's voice was calm over their headsets but neither he nor Suoh missed the man's urgent tones. They sped up.   
  
Aki left the door open as he rummaged through the back seat of the stretched Mercedes Maybach. The seats felt like clouds and it took a lot of will power to not allow his tired body to sink into their comfort and nap. He forced himself to rifle through the built in storage compartments under the seats instead. He found little. There was a soft leather brief case in dark grey in which there was a strange metal canister. When he got the top off he found a dark grey tie covered in various sized and colored butterflies. Along with the canister were two leather portfolios both filled with blank paper but holding fancy pens. Aki ran a finger along one; was that gold?   
  
Another storage space held a set of folded cotton towels and a stack of various colored handkerchiefs. Aki thought they might be silk; they felt expensive. He stuffed them into the briefcase. The other two compartments were locked and while he felt he might be able to get them open with time he wasn't certain he'd have enough before the owner of the sleek car returned.   
  
In the last compartment Aki found a dry bar. There were four stoppered crystal decanters and eight various sized cut crystal glasses. He pulled off the stopper of one of the decanters and sniffed. The sharp alcohol curled his nose. He knew even small sip on his empty stomach would go straight to his head. He started to put the stopper back and then paused. A sip would also ease the throbbing pain in his wrist and ankle the two things preventing him from earning his keep. If he had access to an effective painkiller maybe he would earn enough to keep from being sold. Aki took a deep breath and tilted the bottle to his lips.   
  
He meant for it to be a sip what he got was about three mouthfuls. The bottle was heavier than it looked and he had to tilt it pretty far to get any of the golden colored liquid to even pass into the bottle's neck. He gulped the alcohol as he lowered the bottle and coughed. His throat stung and his eyes watered. He had to force himself to breath. Still warmth flooded his body removing the chilled shivers that had wracked it for the past several days and the throbbing ache in his right wrist and left ankle became nothing more than a dull tug on his sense.   
  
Aki laughed. No he giggled. He set the decanter down and stoppered it. The Boss would be beside himself with such a gift. Still the man would probably get drunk off of it and break the expensive bottle when he was done. These days when the boss was drunk Yuri got to oversee his discipline. Aki didn't know what it was about himself that Yuri hated but he wasn't so stupid as to encourage the boss to allow Yuri to play. So the decanter went back into the little cabinet. That didn't mean he couldn't take some of the pretty glasses.   
  
Asami and Suoh reached the fourth floor of the parking garage. They wasted no time with being quiet and slammed the door open. Suoh yelled across the open space, "Hey kid get out of the car!"   
  
Aki was placing the fourth towel wrapped glass into the briefcase when he heard a door slam outside the car. He glanced up and saw two large well-dressed men exit the stairwell across the building. He panicked. He reached out and shut the door as he pulled the long strap of the leather briefcase over his head and across his chest. It would do to lose the night's largess. The door clicked shut and there was a strange hissing noise as he crossed the seat to pull at the handle of the opposite side.   
  
The air was suddenly painful to breath. It felt like he was sucking ice into his lungs. His head swam and he couldn't keep his eyes open. What the hell? He forced himself yank at the door handle but the door wouldn't budge. It felt like hours but it was only seconds before his eyelids refused to stay open and blackness pulled him under.   
  
Asami stood over the boy as his personal physician treated the blonde. They had expected him to be a teenager. Thinking he was probably a druggie looking to score some quick cash by selling whatever it was he could pick up. The tiny form not even taking up half the hospital bed was a far cry from a teenager. The child didn't look to be more than eight and Asami was eternally grateful he wasn't truly harmed by the gas. However, it was clear that the boy was hurt.   
  
The beating had been brutal. The child's back, buttocks, and legs were littered with dark bruises, each one a long thick line and many covering broken infected skin. Someone had taken a thick leather strap to the boy and given how deep Yasuo-hakishi said the bruising was it was a wonder the boy didn't have more broken bones, though the three in his wrist and two in his ankle were more than enough.   
  
He followed Yasuo out, when the doctor nodded at him, turning to face the man once the door fully closed, "How is he?"   
  
The older man frowned distress clearly clouding his vision. His doctor took a deep breath and let it out slowly before speaking. "You saw him."   
  
"I'd like to hear the official list of injuries, please." Asami reached for a cigarette then remembered where he was and redirected his hand into his suit pants pocket.   
  
His nervousness about hearing the inventory of damages was unusual in the extreme. Though, if he thought about it logically, he wasn't surprised; blondes had long brought out his protective tendencies. He'd been deeply touched by one at what should have been the lowest point in his life. A toddler's beaming smile which he'd never see again; to this day he still preferred blondes.   
  
"Well as you could see he is deeply bruised almost everywhere. His right scaphoid and trapezium are broken along with the metacarpal in his thumb. In his left ankle his talus, navicular, and cuboid bones are all fractured." Yasuo looked into Asami's eyes briefly before looking back down at his tablet, "The breaks were intentional, sir." He pulled up the x-ray on his tablet and turned it to Asami. "You can see from the pattern of the fractures. It looks like someone took a hammer to them."   
  
Asami nodded, "He's half starved; this has been going on for a while."   
  
"He has bruises on top of bruises, Asami-sama. They are a result of intentional, systematic abuse. I haven't seen this since we rescued those women and girls from that shipping container eight months ago." The doctor shook his head. "I have no doubt we're looking at a similar situation here."   
  
"You believe someone is using the boy, either to traffic or as the goods themselves?"   
  
Yasuo looked up from his pad again, "There are no signs of sexual abuse. That doesn't mean it hasn't happened just that it has been long enough since the last penetration that any signs have healed." The man flipped through the boy's chart again. "However, all the other physical signs are there. He's been kept on the brink of starvation. His ankle should be in so much pain he can't walk and how he was using his right hand with that thumb I have no clue."   
  
The doctor glanced at the door, "As for your trap." He frowned at Asami then, "The boy seems to have consumed some whiskey before breathing the gas. Believe it or not that actually helped mitigate the poison's effects. It will hurt to breath for several weeks and he'll have trouble doing any strenuous physical activities for a good six to eight months." He closed the file on his tablet, "I am keeping him overnight. He'll remain sedated to relieve the pain he must be in and allow his body to rest. I'll also be running fluids and vitamins into him."   
  
"And when he wakes?" Asami glanced at the door.   
  
"I'll have to turn him over to the authorities. Unless you can work a miracle and gain guardianship before the next twenty-four hours are up, I'll have no choice but to notify the police a runaway has been brought to our emergency room." He sighed, "Legally I should have informed the authorities hours ago. I can get away with 24 hours because of his condition, but not any longer. I can't jeopardize what we do here for one solitary boy."   
  
Asami nodded, "Twenty-four hours is more than enough time. I'll have the paperwork to you before noon." He turned to walk away.   
  
"Asami-sama?" Yasuo watched as Asami turned and looked back at him before he asked, "What are you planning to do with the boy?"   
  
"What do you think?" Asami almost growled the question.   
  
Yasuo steeled his trembling muscles, "I know you won't harm him sir, but he's going to need professional help." He gestured to the door, "We don't know how long this abuse has gone on, but I can promise you it will take a lifetime to recover from."   
  
Asami nodded, "duly noted, doctor. If you have recommendations, please forward them to Kirishima. I will ensure we follow as many as we are able." Yasuo nodded and Asami turned to leave again. The list of injuries crowded his thoughts. Who would do that to a child?   
  
He was no stranger to the darker side of mankind. Much of his wealth had been earned by his family having fingers in several nefarious pies and though he'd worked for many years to remove himself from that legacy, he had no issues using the methods of his father to ensure his empire was kept safe.   
  
He may have removed the association of his family name from drug running and human trafficking. He may have switched his focus to fixing troublesome issues for seedy politicians and yakuza while running numerous clubs, restaurants, and hotels for them to meet in privacy and seal their alliances instead of actively participating, but even he knew that should he feel it necessary he'd dish out similar punishment to any who crossed him. It was a beating much like he'd planned to give the traitor they were still actively searching for.   
  
For all that he had no issue with serving violence to his fellow man though, he'd never, not once in his career, even thought about striking a child. He was certain that if the thought ever crossed his mind it would quickly be followed by that bright, cheerful smile the blonde had given him through tears so many years ago. Asami almost grimaced. Yes, with that example he could barely even think about possibly striking one.   
  
His phone rang as he exited the hospital. One glance and he answered, "Kirishima, have you identified the boy?"   
  
"Yes, Asami-sama. It is Takaba Akihito."   
  
Asami nearly paused as he climbed into his now trap free Mercedes-Maybach S600 Pullman Guard. He settled into the dark leather of the back seat and released the breath he hadn't known he was holding, "Takaba Akihito has been dead for nearly eight years, Kirishima."   
  
"I know that is what we've believed sir, but the finger prints match. I am getting confirmation through DNA but that will take time and considering your history with the Takabas, I felt it prudent to inform you of the current information."   
  
Asami nodded to himself. Kirishima had been his second since he'd taken on work in his father's organization at fifteen. Kirishima could probably remember their fateful meeting of the boy himself. He knew his second would remember the last time they had seen him. Dressed in his first school uniform and so proud of his dark short pants, white socks and short sleeved, white button up, he'd all but shouted at them that he'd dressed himself.   
  
It hadn't daunted him that one sock was significantly shorter than the other or that his shirt was buttoned wrong. Asami had watched as the boy's father had proudly taken pictures and the boy's mother had cried when Akihito insisted he could walk himself the two blocks to school. Asami and Kirishima hadn't let him, though they'd followed discreetly so they boy wouldn't know. A copy of one of the pictures still sat on his office desk.   
  
They still didn't know how the boy had gone from entering the school building at 8:34 am on a sunny April morning to missing less than eight hours later. Asami did know how the small blond body with its unrecognizable smashed face and burned fingers had been mistaken for the kindergartener. Akihito's mother had embroidered her son's name into each of his school garments. So, though the body had not worn shoes or socks the once bright white shirt had boldly proclaimed the name of the victim.   
  
Asami took a deep breath and pulled out one of the handkerchiefs Kirishima always kept stocked in the limos. He dried his eyes and said, "Pull the Takaba's will and expedite the paperwork to make the boy my ward." He looked out the window, "I'll be at the office in another ten minutes to read the full report." He went to hang up then said, "and send someone to the penthouse to set up a room for him."   
  
"Hai, Asami-sama. And Ryuichi?"   
  
"Yes, Kei?"   
  
"I'm glad we found him alive."   
  
Asami's brain ran through the condition the boy was in. "At what cost, Kei?"   
  
"One you've already ensured you can afford. This time we will protect him."   
  
"I pray you're correct." 


	3. Recollection and Memories

Aki hurt. It hurt to move his eyes; it hurt to move his legs and arms. It even hurt to breathe. He still tried. He didn't know how long he'd been unconscious but surely it hadn't been long. Curfew was coming and he didn't think he'd be able to stand another punishment this close to his last one. He pried his eye lids open only to close them again in confusion. He wasn't in the parking garage or any of the places he recognized. He certainly wasn't in the boss' hotel.   
  
For one thing the place was cleaner. There were no smells of unwashed bodies, no musk of sweating drug addled enforcers, nor was there any sign of week old take out containers and empty beer cans. So, he definitely wasn't in his boss' hotel. He opened his eyes again.   
  
He was lying on a wide thick European style mattress sitting on a bed frame with both a headboard and foot board. The sheets were soft and smelled of citrus fruit. They were a soft cream color and complimented the bright orange comforter that topped them. The pillows were thick and puffy; they cradled his head even though he was turned on his side. The room's walls were a dark cream trimmed with dark grey baseboards and crown molding. It was definitely not the hotel. Where was he and how did he get here?   
  
Aki's back ached, his ankle throbbed and so did his wrist. Both however, were bandaged tightly and wrapped in fitted braces. He was wearing a large dress shirt buttoned up to his chin with the sleeves rolled past his elbows. It was significantly too large for him and it slipped to one side exposing his prominent collar bones. The white shirt made his greying skin look even worse than normal. He frowned at it then ran his fingers through his hair.   
  
The strands weren't matted and they were shorter than they'd been for several years, though the bangs still hung down into his eyes. He glanced out of the window and saw that wherever he was it was above the bulk of Tokyo. It was a high rise, one of the taller ones if its relationship to the nearest buildings was any indication. The thought made him pause.   
  
Had the boss come through on his threat? He'd been introduced on several occasions to the fat slovenly men who rode around in their limos and ran the world. They'd all been enamored of his hair. The boss had allowed those men to touch him and made Aki lick and suck their sweaty cocks, but he'd never let any of them go all the way. The boss always said that they'd all be invited to the auction once the boy was ready to be sold. Had it finally happened?   
  
Cold fear coiled in Aki's stomach. Bile rose in his throat and he had to swallow several times to keep it down. He'd always known it would happen someday. Why it had taken so long he wasn't actually certain. Other boys the boss acquired were often sold months after they arrived. Aki never knew why he was so special. Still it had protected his grandparents. Surely his sale had made the man enough money to pay off their debt.   
  
He wondered which of the men had purchased him and wither this was a room in their home? With that in mind he maneuvered to the side of the bed. He gingerly stood and was relieved to find that the brace wrapping his ankle allowed him to walk, though his current strength left much to be desired. He was forced to lean against the wall and work his way around the room to the doors.   
  
The first led to a small closet or at least what Aki figured was small for his new owner. The space was actually bigger than the area he'd slept in at the boss' hotel. The second door was to a bathroom. He stopped to marvel at the luxury. Everything was spotless and looked brand new. It was a far cry from the rusty pipes and never quite clean communal bathing area he'd had to share with the boss' enforcers. Only the boss and Yuri got private facilities.   
  
The last door opened to a hallway. To his left the hallway extended past a door in the same wall he was standing in and two doors across from him to end at a picture window under which sat a short, dark grey table upon which sat a large ivory vase filled to overflowing with red chrysanthemums. To his right was a wide opening from which several deep voices traveled.   
  
Aki didn't want to encounter his new master, but he took a deep breath and worked his way down the corridor to the wide opening. There he paused and found himself gaping at the overly large living area. It was completely open with tall ceilings. The walls were the same cream as the bedroom and the hallway and the floors were the same long thick planks of dark grey stained wood that graced the hallway.   
  
The far wall in front of him held an enormous kitchen. Had the boss had one like it Aki doubts he'd have ever been beaten for the meals he'd made over the years. There was a long wooden table stained white and surrounded by twelve dark grey upholstered chairs. Another of the large fat vases sat in the middle also stuffed to overflowing with red chrysanthemums. To his left and nearest him was a large seating area with similarly upholstered overstuffed couches and two of those large chairs that are not quite big enough to be called true loveseats. The coffee tables were of the same white washed wood as the dining table.   
  
To his right was a wall of glass. The windows were floor to ceiling and the glory of Tokyo shone in the waning light of the setting sun. There were several small seating areas facing the view. In one sat three men all speaking lowly. The man in the center had raven black hair which bounced the waning sunlight about its strands and reflected dark rainbows. To his right sat a man with glasses and caramel brown hair and to his left sat a giant with military cut yellow gold hair. The one with glasses glance in Aki's direction and pointed.   
  
The raven turned and Aki found he was unable to look away from the piercing golden eyes that held his. The man rose and prowled across the space between them. He frowned and Aki was certain the frown was aimed at him. Then the man raised his hand.   
  
Aki panicked. He'd done something wrong; he didn't know all the rules for this place and obviously one of them was that he was to stay in the bedroom he woke in. He crossed his arms over his head praying that the man wouldn't hit him too hard. He hadn't thought and he was sorry. He would obey; he promised.   
  
Asami hadn't intended to frighten the boy. In truth he'd not meant to touch the boy at all. Still he'd spent the past twenty hours getting his brain to wrap around the possibility that the blonde that had been stealing from his limo was the same one that had been lost to him so many years ago. When the boy stood in front of him he'd been overcome with the need to touch him.   
  
That hadn't turned out well. The boy had flung his arms over his head. Pushing his self away from the wall on which he'd been leaning in terror. The action caused him to topple. In the end Asami had been forced to catch him as he fell and gather him up with an arm wrapped around his shoulders and one under his knees.   
  
Asami stood with the boy in his arms. Akihito babbled. Promises to obey and not break the rules tumbled from his lips with his arms covering his head and his eyes squeezed shut. For the second time since learning who the boy could be Asami's heart lurched.   
  
He crossed back to the seating area and sat back down. He adjusted the boy until his head was cradled against his chest and his free hand was rubbing soothing stokes along the bumps of the boy's spine. "Shush, you're not in trouble. Shush. Everything is fine."   
  
How long they sat there while Asami soothed the boy none of the men could really say. That it took significantly longer than Asami would have liked, they could all agree on. Still the boy quieted. Asami gently maneuvered him until they could look the boy in the face. Both he and Kirishima sucked in quick breaths.   
  
He had been fifteen and full of himself. He shouldn't have picked that fight with Ogata Daichi. For one thing the older teen was nearly twice as wide as he was. Ryuichi knew he needed to spend more time at his father's gym if he really wanted to beat the boy. Secondly, Daichi was the son of one of his father's lieutenants. The elder Ogata was a terrifyingly cruel man who had the specialized job of carrying out the elder Asami's finial judgments on his enemies. The younger Ogata was turning out to be just like his old man. Now, after losing the fight, Ryuichi found himself tied up and locked in the gardening shed of the old Shinto shrine near their elite high school. It wasn't the end result he was after and he never felt lower.   
  
He could tell his left eye was swelling and his jaw made a peculiar popping noise when he opened it too far. His left thigh was probably bruised and he'd certainly sprained his wrist. It was almost a proper beating. Still he'd given as good as he'd gotten and had young Ogata's cronies not joined in Ryuichi probably would have won. Best of all, the three female junior high students had been able to run away. His grandfather would be proud.   
  
Ryuichi was more like his grandfather than he was his dad. He believed in the old idealistic stories his grandfather always told. Yakuza were meant to protect and guide their turfs. The current petty infighting and rapidly growing violence over turf, the growth of peddled drugs and, worse, the selling of people like they were animals was beneath a proper Yakuza family. Ryuichi longed for the days when being a member of a Yakuza family had garnered as much respect as fear.   
  
Still even he had to admit that those days were long gone. In their world fear was greater than respect and only those that could hold their own while taking from others got ahead. Which brought him back to his current predicament; he was tied up and abandoned in the almost falling down garden shed of a shrine that hadn't had a keeper in nearly four years. The ropes were tight and his wrists had started bleeding; still with that little lubricant he was able to start twisting the strands. It wouldn't matter if he took all night. He would free himself and show his enemies it took more than a simple beating to keep Asami Ryuichi down.   
  
He'd been working on the ropes for several hours and the sun had begun to set. By now Kirishima would be looking for him and that is what caused him to not pay attention to the door creaking opening. He twisted his body and looked up expecting it to be his trusted second. Only instead of Kei's bespectacled visage a tiny blonde boy clutching a threadbare stuffed rabbit leaned over him. "Are yous a Yūrei?"   
  
The child's teary eyes were the most startling blue. Deep and almost black around the iris and growing ever paler as the color spread out until it was almost white. The eyes were set wide in a cherub's face having plump pale cheeks with a set of rosy lips and crowned with pale silver blonde curls. For a brief moment Ryuichi thought he might have died and his mother's Christian religion had turned out to be correct. Asami Ryuichi was dead and for no reason he could see he'd gone to heaven. For only an angle could be that adorable.   
  
Then cold water dripped from said angel's wet hair and onto Ryuichi's face. In the next instant the angelic image was ruined by the boy shaking his head like a wet dog and sending beads of cold rain water out around him. It wasn't until after he'd shaken the worse of it off that he looked at Ryuichi and spoke again, "Yous not ghost. They no get wet." He plopped down next to Asami, stuck his thumb in his mouth and smiled.   
  
Ryuichi had been so shocked at the events he almost didn't hear Kirishima enter the shed. His second had also been momentarily shocked at the blonde toddler. However he quickly untied Ryuichi and then joined the young Yakuza son as they waited out the rain storm that had sprung up while Ryuichi was working on his bonds.   
  
At first the teens were uncomfortable sitting with the toddler. The last thing they wanted was to be associated with kidnapping even if it was accidental. So they'd tried to sit apart from the youngster and watch the sky for the first opportunity to leave.   
  
The toddler was having none of that. As soon as Asami crossed his legs comfortably the little boy plopped himself in the teen's lap. "You hafe pretty eyes."   
  
Ryuichi remembers chuckling at that, "Pretty? Not scary? I could be oni out to capture you and take you to the nether world?"   
  
The boy had just laughed and snuggled into Ryuichi's lap saying, "Not stinky oni." Though, the statement was garbled around his thumb. The boy patted Ryuichi's cheek before saying, "mines, mines pretty kishi." With that proclamation he promptly fell asleep.   
  
It had rained another hour before the weather let up enough for them to leave the shelter of the shed. Kirishima had offered to carry the boy while they looked for either his parents or the police. Ryuichi had laughed and reminded his second that the boy had proclaimed Asami his knight and it was a knight's duty to ensure his prince made it home safely. Besides the boy had been the lightest thing Asami could ever remember carrying.   
  
They'd not walked ten minutes when a young man obviously not yet out of his twenties ran up to the teens. It was Akihito's father. The young man was as friendly as the boy and from their first minutes of interaction both Kirishima and Asami knew the young man didn't have a cautious bone in his body. The teens were all but dragged back to the Takaba house and fed one of the best meals in Asami's memories. From that point on Ryuichi made a point of visiting the Takabas every week.   
  
It was quickly noticed by his father's underlings that their next leader had taken a shine to the Takabas. The boy had guards Asami trusted posted about the home and though the adult Takabas were unaware Akihito soon figured out he was followed every time he was out of the house. He made a game out of losing the men assigned to watch him.   
  
Ryuichi started calling him Kitten which would often rouse the toddler up to his full height and have him proclaiming that he wasn't a baby but a big boy and he'd show Kishi how big cats acted. Which invariablly would make Ryuichi laugh and the little boy growl. Asami could still recall the one time the boy had admitted to being his Kitten. It had only been a few months before the boy had gone missing.   
  
The neighborhood the Takabas lived in was quiet and safe and for all the boy's recklessness there was just not much that could hurt him. Oh, he got scrapes and bruises, but mainly from his own clumsiness and the boy always smiled. Even the one time he really hurt himself falling out of the tree he'd climbed to hide from the babysitters Asami had assigned him, he'd smiled while tears streamed down his face.   
  
When the nurse asked him how he could smile when he obviously hurt so much Akihito had replied, "It would make Kishi, the boy never called Ryuichi by his actual name, would be sad." Ryuichi had left school and rushed to join Akihito's mother at the emergency room. Ryuichi never got an explanation on how the boy knew.   
  
The doctor gave the toddler a small shot to numb the pain of the break and then wrapped the arm tightly and braced it. They would have to return after the swelling went down for an actual cast. Akihito insisted that his Kishi carry him home. It had been a task Ryuichi was only too happy to do.   
  
He carried Akihito right up to his bed. There while tucking him in he'd called the boy Kitten. Instead of riling the boy up the child had smiled sleepily and talked around the thumb in his mouth, it was a habit Ryuichi had still been working on breaking. "Yesh, always yours Kithen." The boy grabbed Ryuichi's hand and placed beneath his head to lay on and finished with, "yous always mines Kishi."   
  
It was months before Ryuichi saw his Kitten again. Ogata made a grab for power a couple of days after Akihito broke his arm by assassinating Ryuichi's father and holding his mother hostage. The usurper made a mass appeal to the rest of the clan, claiming that Ryuichi's father had grown weak and was raising his son to be the same way. He'd held the ordered protection of the Takaba family, people unrelated to their world and with no benefits for receiving said protection as part of his proof.   
  
What Ogata had failed to realize was that Ryuichi had been five steps ahead of him. Ryuichi had never had any love for his parents. The couple was distant and cold at best. His father was tyrannical and cruel even in his better moments and his mother a money lusting socialite that spent more time traveling Europe than raising her son. At fifteen Ryuichi had already decided he would take over the Asami Clan before he exited high school. His first recruit to the effort was his own grandfather.   
  
The old Asami, though retired, still held a lot of sway with the smaller families in the clan. He ensured Ryuichi was provided with plenty of alone time with the heads of each to explain his reasoning and his thoughtful plans. When his grandfather had ruled the Asami clan it grew to twenty-three families. Under his father that number was reduced to seventeen with most of the missing families wiped out in inter-faction feuds. Asami intended to put an end to that.   
  
The Asami clan would instead become not the most feared Yakuza clan in Japan because of their violence but instead because they were the most skillful Fixers. Fear of the Asami name would someday not be driven by physical punishments but by the clan's economic power fueling the ability to out purchase and out fund any endeavor. Others would learn that to be allies of the Asami clan would garner them great wealth, but to be their enemies would ensure economic ruin.   
  
Ryuichi new the world was changing and that to survive the clan couldn't continue to depend on the old gang ways. The exploitation of the people in their territories was harming them more than helping. Politicians were no longer swayed entirely by quick cash contributions but required long term commitment to their own positions and partnerships in endeavors that benefited both sides. Wealth drove power and wealth was driven by economic innovation not backstreet deals and gun battles around the latest drug of choice.   
  
So it was with much bravado that Ogata arrived at what he thought would be a vote in his favor that wet December night over eight years ago. He'd laughed when he saw Ryuichi kneeling on one of the four cushions placed out for members seeking to become the clan leader. They waited the prerequisite two hours. Ryuichi sat in seiza form still as marble with quiet calm. Ogata started in that position but wiggled and whined about the tradition and how it was pointless. Obviously everyone else already knew he was the best choice and that was why no others came to sit.   
  
When it became time for the elders to vote Asami gracefully stood and bowed lowly from the waist. He presented a short version of what he saw the clan could become. The clan was struggling financially and the money earned through drug trade and extortion could no longer even cover the costs of collection. It was time to move the clan into the twenty-first century. It would be rough for the first five years but he had a detailed plan and promised he could not only bring the Asami clan back from the brink of ruin but make it stronger than it had ever been. Then he sat gracefully back down.   
  
Ogata had laughed and stood halfway through Asami's presentation. When he spoke, he poked fun at the young man's ideas and then preached how the clan was stronger for the culling of the weak families and that they now controlled the drug and gun trade across most of Ota-ku, Shinagawa-ku, and parts of Koto-ku. They all but controlled entrance and exit from Tokyo and with that power they'd soon control the transport of every illegal substance in the city. That power was because of him. He was the man the previous lord had sent out to quell dissention. The man's weakness and refusal to retaliate quickly and decisively in the past few years was the only reason the clan had started to suffer. Give him the role of leader and the man power and he'd see all of Tokyo's twenty-three special wards crushed under the Ogata clan's foot.   
  
Ogata of course lost the vote. The elders had started out split evenly between following Asami into the future and remaining true to their historical roots. It was Asami's differential attitude and strict adherence to the traditional protocols that swayed them. When the final tally was taken only three of the twelve elders voted to allow Ogata to lead them. When to vote was announced Ogata was given the choice to drink the familial cup or leave the clan for good. He walked out telling the group that they would come to regret their decision. Daichi was equally angry and had looked at Asami with an evil smile, "You'll lose, Ryuichi-san. You can't be everywhere."   
  
The initial months were brutal, and though Asami didn't want to lead the clan with the same tyrannical fist as his father he was forced to in those first weeks and months. The elders had to see that he could be ruthless regardless of the situation. Thus, Asami increased the number of guards on the Takabas and then spent all of January, February, and March of the year Akihito turned five cleaning house. That is not to say he waded in blood. Most of his house cleaning only involved giving specific people the choice to leave his territory and never return or take their own lives. There were actually very few he was actually forced to hunt and murder.   
  
Still by the time April started the whole situation had started to wane on him. It was with almost giddy excitement he read Akihito's invitation to see him off on his first day of school. Asami went to the stores himself and picked out the Bulbasaur backpack and matching bento boxes. He had them wrapped and delivered a couple of days before the big event. He and Kei personally tailed the little boy to the school gates and watched him greet his teacher through a window before turning the boy's care back over to the guards at the front and back of the school.   
  
Akihito never made it home. The guards at the school never saw him leave but used to the child giving them the slip they spent hours searching his usual hiding spots before deciding that something was really wrong. The teachers had seen him leave the building with the other children. When questioned the youngsters remembered that he'd played ball with them and when one of them had thrown the ball over the school wall into the yard of the haunted house next door Akihito had been the only one to not run away.   
  
There was a small portion of the school wall broken away yet over grown with short spiky bushes between the old dilapidated house the children were afraid of and the play grounds. Ryuichi knew that his boy wouldn't have been afraid. After all he made friends with ghosts and turned them into Kishi. He and Kei checked the house themselves. They figured that Akihito had gotten to exploring and lost track of time. He'd probably worn himself out and laid down for a nap where ever he'd stopped.   
  
The image of what they'd found haunted Asami's nightmares to this day. Down in the house's cold cellar laid the body of a tiny blonde boy. The child's clothes were torn his shoes and socks missing. Bruises had covered the small body and fluids that had no business being near a five year old covered his bottom and the back of his legs. Duct tape wrapped around his head and hair several times covering his mouth.   
  
The coroner told them that the burns to the boys fingers and the complete breaking of the boy's facial bones, jaw, teeth, and skull, the very things that kept them from visually identifying him, had all been done post mortem. Not that what killed the child was any less horrific. Asami had spent a considerable portion of his own wealth over the years trying to find the perpetrators of Asami's one and only nightmare.   
  
It was partially to continue that crusade that drove Asami to dominate the financial markets. He refused to be anything but the most powerful, influential, and richest person in Japan. Then he'd moved on to international markets. Men of money could ask for almost anything and if the person that had done those horrible things to his boy had escaped Japan Asami had intended to be able to get access where ever the monster was.   
  
This boy's eyes were the same startling blue. Deep and almost black around the iris and growing ever paler as the color spread out until it was almost white. Asami had never found another pair like them and the heavens knows he tried. In every woman he dated and in the face of every omiai he attended. He looked for those eyes in every blonde he came across.   
  
Asami forgave his self for the tears that leaked down his face as he raised his hand slowly and cupped the boy's cheek, "Kitten."   
  
Aki quickly diverted his gaze when the man gasped. Then he frowned at the golden eyed man's chest as the man gently held his cheek. Why was the man holding him? Why did he call him 'Kitten'? Was that his name here? Aki wanted to ask but even though the man had been gentle so far Aki knew better than to let his guard down. The men the boss brought to see Aki often started out kind. That only ever lasted until they'd had a few drinks.   
  
The glasses wearing man sat back down smiling, "Akihito, we never thought we'd see you again."   
  
Aki glanced at the Megane-san from the corner of his eyes. Who was Akihito? Did these people think his name was Akihito? He glanced back at the golden eyed man. The tears had dried but he was smiling broadly and he hadn't stilled the hand running up and down his back. He fought the soothing motion. He wished the man would stop but didn't ask. He had to stay awake. He had to…. His stomach growled; the sound reverberated through the apartment and Aki stilled every muscle in his body.   
  
Asami paused when he felt Akihito tense. He'd almost laughed. The sound had been so much like the little Akihito from eight years ago that his brain had skipped time. It was like the boy had never been lost. Yet, this Akihito seemed terrified of what his reaction to being hungry would be.   
  
He glanced at Kei and Kazumi both nodded and rose slowly. Kazumi left to put together the team that would be guarding his Kitten and to run the security checks on the specialists that Dr. Yasuo had suggested they contact. The list included every possible specialist imaginable from an Endocrinologist because the boy's T4 and T3 values were outrageously high to a speech therapist to evaluate his throat because he'd shown difficulty with his reflexive swallowing. There was a Cardiologist because of the possible damage to his heart due to prolonged near starvation and likewise a Pulmonologist due to potential scaring of his lungs because of his exposure to the poisons gas. There was a lengthy list of people Kazumi had to vet before the week was out.   
  
They were going to start with the best certified Nutritionist in Japan. It was someone known to Asami and loyal to the clan. She was being jetted from Okinawa where she currently worked for the US government developing menus for the Futenma Air Station and working with their physical therapists. That was a specialist they wouldn't be seeing until after Akihito's broken bones had healed.   
  
For tonight however Asami had been told to ensure he limited the boy's food intake. It wasn't that the boy couldn't have what he wanted, though Asami was warned to keep it non spicy. It was more that the boy's stomach was probably very small and it would harm more than help, if they stretched it too quickly. It was better for the boy to have several small meals and snacks each day rather than stuff his self. To facilitate that Asami had already ordered small helpings of Chicken yakatori, steamed rice and miso soup. Kirishima was headed to heat the food for them.   
  
Once his second and third had moved away Asami turned his attention back to the boy in his lap. The extended time between his stomach growling and Asami turning back to him appeared to have eased some of the boy's tension. Still Asami could tell the boy was watching him closely. At least he was watching his hands closely. Asami was certain that given proper motivation the boy would leap from his lap and dash out the penthouse door. The terror of what Asami might do to him once he was caught was all that was holding him still.   
  
Asami moved the hand cupping the teenager's cheek down to his chin and spoke. "Akihito, look at me." He infused his speech with some of the inflection he gave when ordering his subordinates. His tone and inflection often made those men snap to several seconds before they even knew what the order they'd been given was. The boy responded the same, snapping his gaze to Asami's face before stilling like a deer caught in someone's headlights. Asami smiled softly, "I know you have no reason to believe me, but no one here is going to hurt you, Kitten."   
  
Now that the boy was looking at him he could see the confusion in his eyes at the nickname. Intellectually Asami was aware that the boy had not yet even been five. He himself couldn't remember most of his childhood before seven or eight. It was inconceivable that this boy would remember him. Still it hurt and like he always did he allowed that hurt to quickly turn to anger.   
  
Aki felt when the man's calmness transformed into anger. He was clueless as to what he'd done. He'd only looked at the man when ordered. Was that against the rules no matter what? The emotion rolling off the man was palatable on Aki's tongue he shrunk down and jerked off the man's lap in response. "I'm sorry. I won't do it again."   
  
It was those words that pulled Asami back from the dark thoughts he'd been thinking. His metal imagery of the tortures he'd unleash on the boy's tormentors were ripped from his mind when his boy threw himself on to the hard wood floor and literally kiss his feet all the while begging forgiveness for some imaginary sin.   
  
He bent down and the boy stilled. He paused. Asami honestly didn't know what to do. He had thought to put off a visit by a psychologist until the boy had acclimated to the penthouse. Perhaps it would be best if one visited them before the week was out.   
  
Before Asami could decide what to do in the moment however, Kirishima came back with the boy's food. He sat the bowls, plate, and chop sticks on the low coffee table and left only to return with a large glass of clear water. The boy's stomach growled again.   
  
Asami smiled and said, "Eat."   
  
The boy slowly rose and stared at the bowls on the table. His stomach growled again causing him to flinch from an imaginary blow. He glanced up at Asami and then back at the food. He did this several times before he slowly reached out and took the rice bowl. He tucked it into the bend of his right elbow to hold tucked up against his chest and he was just about to use his fingers when Asami held out the chopsticks, "Do you know how to use them?"   
  
Aki didn't know what he was supposed to do. He wasn't good enough for utensils, was he? The rules here were confusing and no one would explain them. If he used the chopsticks and made a mess would he get beaten? He was already leery of holding the expensive dishes and desperate to still his trembling limbs. He didn't want to find out what happened if he broke one. He wasn't allowed accidents; the boss had told him that. Accidents were an expense only people that made enough money, like Yuri, were afforded. Still the man hadn't hit him yet and he seemed to want an answer.   
  
"I only ever make messes with them."   
  
The boy's voice was a soft but lyrical tenor. He answered so lowly though that Asami had to lean forward in order to hear him. The response almost made him frown but the boy was slowly relaxing and Asami didn't want him to mistake anger over his treatment with anger over something he'd done. So instead of frowning he gently placed the chopsticks into the teenager's good hand. "Well it all works out with practice."   
  
Akihito at five had only just started using chopsticks and never with his rice. His mother had always given him a large spoon for that. The boy below struggled with getting any more than a few grains at a time with the pair Asami had given him but he was extremely careful not one grain fell from the bowl or sticks to the floor.   
  
However his carefulness meant that it took forever to complete the rice. The tension of the afternoon seemed to suddenly overwhelm the poor boy and he nearly missed the table when he went to put the empty bowl on the low table. The sound of the bowl hitting the edge startled him and he glanced up to see what the man's response was. Asami was exceedingly happy to see the boy's shoulders drop somewhat when he realized Asami seemed to not care his expensive rice bowl was nearly broken.   
  
Once the boy had placed the bowl and the chopsticks carefully down Asami bent and gathered the boy to his chest before standing fully. "Back to bed with you, Kitten." He smiled when the boy flashed the look of confusion his way again. "You can ask what ever questions you have. I'll answer what I can and ignore the rest."   
  
Aki mulled that over, the man had not said he would answer the one's he wanted to but the ones he could, though that could be Aki's brain splitting hairs. As strange as the evening had been, it had left him with a few clues about his new owner. One was that either the man never got truly mad or he was forgiving and didn't intend to punish Aki for breaking rules he either didn't know or understand. Two the man seemed to enjoy touching him. Even while he'd struggled with the rice and chopsticks the man had gently maneuvered Aki to rest his back against the man's legs and kept a soothing touch on Aki's shoulder. It had been enough that Aki hadn't panicked when the man scooped him up to carry back to the bed room. Still it all left Aki with a lot of questions.   
  
The journey wasn't long and the man was placing him gently on the thick mattress and pulling the covers up to his chin before Aki could decide which of the questions he wanted to get answered first. Just as the man was moving away Aki decided, "Is Kitten my new name, Masutā?"   
  
Asami paused and schooled his features before turning back around. He softly smiled and sat on the edge of the boy's bed, "Kitten is your nickname. Your full name is Takaba Akihito. You were born on May fifth at Shonan Fujisawa Tokushukai Hospital by caesarian section to Takaba Shiro and Takaba Kiko. You were early by six weeks and weighed 2.86 kilograms. Also, please never call me master."   
  
Aki frowned while trying to remember the biographical information the man had spouted. It was obviously part of the story he was to tell authorities should he be caught. Why it was different than what he'd been taught by the boss his new owner may never tell him. The response did embolden him to ask, "What am I supposed to call you?"   
  
"Kishi. You once promised I would always be that to you." Asami figured he might be overwhelming the boy but being called 'Master' had both hurt his heart and his head. He wasn't going to allow that to continue. He might not be able to give Akihito back his childhood, but he could ensure the rest of his life was safe and happy.   
  
"I don't understand."   
  
Asami smiled leaned over and kissed the boy's forehead, "I know, someday though you will."   
  
"Can I ask another question?" Aki wasn't certain how many he was allowed and he had so many.   
  
"That would already be considered another question Kitten." He smiled softly though and continued, "There is no limit on what or how many you are allowed to ask. However, you are very tired and I will only answer two more tonight. You may corner me at the breakfast table in the morning and continue."   
  
Aki wasn't certain which two questions he should ask. It took him several seconds to settle on them and while he did he twisted the sheet in his fingers. Finally he looked up and asked, "When are you going to tell me the rules and how am I to earn my keep?"


	4. Rules and Upkeep

_"Once upon a time in the country of Japan there lived two frogs, one of whom made his home in a ditch near the town of Osaka, on the sea coast, while the other dwelt in a clear little stream which ran through the city of Kyoto. At such a great distance apart, they had never even heard of each other; but, funnily enough, the idea came into both their heads at once that they should like to see a little of the world, and the frog who lived at Kyoto wanted to visit Osaka, and the frog who lived at Osaka wished to go to Kyoto, where the great Mikado had his palace._   
  
_So one fine morning in the spring they both set out along the road that led from Kyoto to Osaka, one from one end and the other from the other. The journey was more tiring than they expected, for they did not know much about traveling, and halfway between the two towns there arose a mountain which had to be climbed. It took them a long time and a great many hops to reach the top, but there they were at last, and what was the surprise of each to see another frog before him!_   
  
_They looked at each other for a moment without speaking, and then fell into conversation, explaining the cause of their meeting so far from their homes. It was delightful to find that they both felt the same wish--to learn a little more of their native country--and as there was no sort of hurry they stretched themselves out in a cool, damp place, and agreed that they would have a good rest before they parted to go their ways._   
  
_'What a pity we are not bigger,' said the Osaka frog; 'for then we could see both towns from here, and tell if it is worth our while going on.'_   
  
_'Oh, that is easily managed,' returned the Kyoto frog. 'We have only got to stand up on our hind legs, and hold onto each other, and then we can each look at the town he is traveling to.'_   
  
_This idea pleased the Osaka frog so much that he at once jumped up and put his front paws on the shoulder of his friend, who had risen also. There they both stood, stretching themselves as high as they could, and holding each other tightly, so that they might not fall down. The Kyoto frog turned his nose towards Osaka, and the Osaka frog turned his nose towards Kyoto; but the foolish things forgot that when they stood up their great eyes lay in the backs of their heads, and that though their noses might point to the places to which they wanted to go, their eyes beheld the places from which they had come._   
  
_'Dear me!' cried the Osaka frog, 'Kyoto is exactly like Osaka. It is certainly not worth such a long journey. I shall go home!'_   
  
_'If I had had any idea that Osaka was only a copy of Kyoto I should never have traveled all this way,' exclaimed the frog from Kyoto, and as he spoke he took his hands from his friend's shoulders, and they both fell down on the grass. Then they took a polite farewell of each other, and set off for home again, and to the end of their lives they believed that Osaka and Kyoto, which are as different to look at as two towns can be, were as alike as two peas."_   
  
The tutor smiled, "You read the whole story today. Excellent! Now if only you were as quick with learning your history."   
  
Aki had looked up from the small electronic tablet and grinned at the tutor, but the mention of history made him groan. It wasn't that he did badly in history it was just that he consistently left it for last to study and by last it meant he ignored anything to do with it until the last minute.   
  
If he was honest he wouldn't be as good at reading if the skill wasn't needed to study and learn new recipes and how to properly use and clean and store the excessive array of cook ware in Asami's kitchen. He was quickly catching up on math for the same reasons.   
  
The tutor that Asami-sama, or Kishi as Aki was required to call him in private, had hired was really strict though and wouldn't let Aki take the proficiency exam that would get him into a regular high school until he was certain the boy would pass every subject. Aki's history scores on the previous two practice exams were woefully low.   
  
Part of the issue was that much of History required rote memorization. That was a skill Aki had not ever really developed. It wasn't that he couldn't memorize things. He had Asami-sama's list of rules remembered after the first full day he'd lived with the man. No the issue was there was no context to the names and dates and events the history test required he know to show proficiency.   
  
That meant that since the last practice test the tutor had taken to make Aki write the information he needed to pass the test down one hundred times every single day. It was the most mind numbing thing he could ever remember doing. Still it wasn't like he had much else to spend time on. His ankle and wrist were still in their full casts placed on him during a visit to an orthopedic surgeon about four days after Asami had acquired him. Since he couldn't really walk without help, he couldn't go anywhere and Asami-sama had told him that he could only spend two hours in front of the television a day, which Aki horded so he could play Assassin's Creed by himself during the week or Mario Kart with Asami-sama on weekends.   
  
Right now he was doing his best to earn an extra two hours for the weekend. Asami-sama had promise to take him to an actual movie theater if he could pass the history part of the practice exam by the time he came home from dinner on Friday night. It was now Tuesday and Aki had been doing extra writing of the information he needed to know every night for a week. It helped that Aki was able to write with both hands. Otherwise he'd have had to wait on even trying to take the test until the surgeon cleared him to use his dominant right.   
  
Still he admitted to himself that he hated history. Science wasn't much better but at least there he grasped the concepts and could see how they applied to the world around him. Besides he needed to know some science to be able to develop his own photos. Asami-sama wouldn't let him use the old film camera he'd found in a storage box of the empty bedroom's closet until he could show he knew what he was doing.   
  
Aki quickly agreed with the tutor about taking a short break before tackling the practice test for that week. He pushed himself up from the dining table eager to be away from the piles of school books and composition books even if it was only as far as one of the seating areas near the floor to ceiling windows. He picked up the digital camera that Asami-sama had brought to the penthouse a couple of days after he'd found Aki taking pictures with the old film one. Aki smiled as he picked it up; it was another memory that would have ended differently had it been the boss or Yuri that had caught him.   
  
The memory made him blush; he'd cried more in the past five weeks than he could ever remember doing before living with Asami-sama. He wasn't even certain why half the time. It was like his brain couldn't wrap around the idea that Asami-sama would keep the promise he'd made the first day. Each time Aki did something the boss or Yuri would have beaten over he'd stress out, panicking and steeling himself for the blows. Every time Asami-sama just held him gently often sitting on the floor with him while cradling him in his arms, rubbing his back in soothing circles, and murmuring nonsense into his ears. The end of the panic attacks always ended in tears.   
  
Aki framed another shot of the Tokyo skyline through the camera's view finder and snapped off several of the afternoon sun bouncing off the surrounding buildings. He loved taking pictures. He couldn't explain why. Something about the process and the results made his stomach and chest twist in good ways. When he was feeling achy from the pain in his wrist or ankle or tired and grumpy from hard lessons with the tutor or worried and stressed over just what it was Asami-sama really wanted from him he would pick up the camera and capture the area around him.   
  
The process was like boxing up his emotions and prioritizing them and the resulting images were always telling. Asami-sama insisted Aki show him any photos he took through the day. Often having the boy download them from the camera onto the man's laptop where they'd looked through them while Aki cuddled in the man's lap between dinner and bed time. Aki was still leery each time he was pulled down onto the man's lap but he was slowly getting used to it.   
  
He was so used to it that he'd been disappointed when the man had not made it home until after his bedtime one night last week. Usually he fell right to sleep after Asami-sama escorted him to his room, checked he'd swallowed his nightly pills, and kissed his forehead goodnight. Usually the ritual unnerved him. He kept waiting for Asami-sama to do more than gently peck his head and smile before saying, "I'll see you in the morning, Kitten." and turning out the overhead light.   
  
That night he found he couldn't settle. He'd laid awake until he heard the front door and without thinking he'd left his bed and hobbled out to the front room where he found Asami-sama removing his heavy over coat and shoes. Like always Kirishima-san was taking the garment to hang after having set Asami-sama's briefcase down. Both had looked up when Aki came around the hallway corner. It wasn't like he could be very quiet with the bulky cast. Asami-sama had frowned at him, scolding him that he should be in bed. It hadn't been until Kirishima asked if everything was ok that Aki himself realized why he hadn't been able to fall asleep.   
  
He'd been frightened that he wouldn't ever see Asami-sama again. Part of him had and sometime still did doubt that everything that had happened over the past weeks wasn't just a dream. When Asami-sama hadn't come home causing their nightly ritual to be postponed that doubt had crept to the forefront and needled away at his growing comfort. When the door had made noises he'd actually been half afraid that when he rounded the corner it wouldn't be Asami-sama he found but the boss or worse Yuri coming to take him back.   
  
Of course he'd tried to not tell Asami-sama all of that. However he'd had no choice when the man asked him directly what it was he was thinking. That was rule number one; Aki had to answer all of Asami-sama's questions fully and truthfully. How the man could tell when Aki was lying the boy didn't know, but it had only taken one try for Aki to determine he'd never be able to lie to the man.   
  
That memory sparked another blush. He'd cried that night also. He'd only lived at the penthouse for a little over a week. However, in that week he'd found the camera and had received the digital version to use. The pattern of downloading to Asami-sama's laptop and going through the images with him each night had also started. That night however Asami-sama had asked Aki questions about where he'd been living before he woke in Asami-sama's penthouse. He specifically asked what Aki used to do to 'earn his keep'.   
  
Aki had been mainly a thief, however he'd done several more embarrassing things as well. There was an underground club that would often pay him to dance, sans clothing and though Aki tried to ensure he stole enough each night to pawn to make the boss' quota, it was hard in the cold months because his hands often shook and picking pockets became really dangerous. Aki had tried to tell the man that he broke into cars and shops but the man had taken one look at his face and frowned before saying, "Kitten, what did I tell you about lying to me?"   
  
Aki remembers whispering his response, "not to ever do it." He also remembered tensing for what he was certain an incoming blow. The hit never came and Asami-sama had sat across from Aki until Aki had lowered his shoulders and looked up with caution.   
  
Then the man had said, "I know you're lying. It may only be by omission, Kitten, but you are either telling me a complete falsehood or you are leaving something out. I'll be taking the camera with me to work for the next three days and you will instead write 'I will not lie to my Kishi ever again.' five hundred times each day." He ate the rest of his meal and then helped Aki to one of the large chairs in front of the television before pulling him down on his lap and saying, "Now, tell me the truth before you have to go a week and end up writing it thirty-five hundred times."   
  
Aki still wasn't certain how the man knew how much he disliked having to write anything or how not being able to take photos would feel awful. Still Aki had never lied or left anything out from an answer since. In fact just the thought he'd lose his camera privileges made him adhere to both the letter and the intention of the rules. Just last Friday when he'd found his stomach growling even after he'd already had his mid-morning snack he'd asked the guard outside to reach out to Asami-sama and see if he was allowed a little more to eat. Even though he was pretty sure Asami-sama wouldn't get angry if he had a few more of the rice balls Aki had made just that morning with out asking. The second rule he'd been given was to adhere to his meal plan and that specified he could have two rice balls, one bowl of Miso soup, and a single piece of fruit for mid-morning.   
  
That day, though, he'd moved about a lot more than normal. The sun had been shining, even though it was below freezing outside, and Aki had moved from room to room taking photos of all the nearby buildings. Something about the sun had made him feel good. He'd even taking some reflective pictures of himself, something he normally never did and had been looking forward to showing them to Asami-sama when the man got home. So when the alarm notified him that it was snack time he'd found he was strangely very hungry and the small meal wasn't enough.   
  
The tutor arrived without a response from the man and Aki had been forced to attend his lessons at less than his best. That was rule number three. Asami-sama expected Aki to pay full attention to his lessons and work at bringing his self up to grade level or at least close enough to pass the entrance exam to the private school Asami-sama was making plans for him to start in April. Asami-sama said he was bright enough to do it given the tutor's help and the man's conviction in Aki's skills was almost enough driving force for Aki to work hard without the rule. Still Friday had come as close as Aki had ever gotten to just zoning out during the lessons, especially when it had come time for him to do the dreaded repetitive writing of Historical facts.   
  
In fact the man had never gotten back with him about having additional food, even though he'd asked the guard again after the noon meal, which was the same menu but with a small piece of steamed white fish added. By the time dinner had come and he was sitting across from Asami-sama he was nearly in tears. He'd inhaled his small dinner and had actually stared at the man across from him as Asami-sama ate his portion.   
  
When Asami-sama asked him what was wrong it was the first time Aki had not held back his thoughts. "I'm still hungry. I've been hungry all day. I did what you told me to do when I wanted something but you never answered." He remembered tensing when he finished. He hadn't realized that being hungry made him irritable and it took most of the night to realize that the look on Asami-sama's face wasn't consternation but pleasure. The next day there was a different guard at the door and another that stood inside and checked on Aki regularly.   
  
"Akihito-sama?" In fact that was the inside guard now.   
  
Aki turned and smiled at the young man. He was not as tall as Asami-sama or Kirishima but he was still taller than Aki. He had brown eyes and dark brown nearly black hair he kept not quite military short. Like all of Asami-sama's guards he wore a black suit and tie with a white shirt. "Yes, Toshiro-san?"   
  
"Asami-sama wanted to check if you'd like sushi for dinner this evening instead of cooking?"   
  
Aki paused before answering. This was another thing he had to get used to. His owner asked him for his opinion and his desires. With rule number one Aki had originally been positive that it was so the man would have plenty of reasons to punish him. Aki still remembered that when he was younger strangers would act concerned about his bruises and when the boss was ever asked he'd always had a list of things Aki had done wrong or rules Aki had disobeyed to explain the beltings. That combined with the story that Aki bruised easily always seemed to sway whomever was concerned into nodding and telling Aki that he shouldn't give his guardian such grief. They'd tell him, "Raising a child is hard enough when the child is good."   
  
The guard cleared his throat and Aki physically jerked as he came back out of his brief memory trip. He tried smiling. He could tell the guard didn't believe he was ok. Aki kept his grin though and replied, "I'd love sushi, as long as Asami-sama wants it also."   
  
Toshiro nodded, "I will inform Kirishima-san." He bowed and turned to walk away only to pause, "Oh, I almost forgot, I am to tell you that there is a delivery coming this afternoon. The concierge will sign for it but there will be a couple of men installing it. You are not to worry; Takeo and I will both be inside the penthouse while they are here. You are to tell us if they make you nervous or disturb your lessons in any way. Understood?"   
  
"Hai, Toshiro-san. I'm certain Kurosawa-sensei and I will be able to continue our lessons while Asami-sama has work done."   
  
Toshiro smiled and returned to the front door. Aki's tutor called an end to his break and Aki went back to studying for the exams.   
  
The midday meal came and went. Aki took a practice science exam and was eating his afternoon snack when Takeo granted two burly furniture movers entry to the penthouse. He glanced up from his strawberry crepe but paid them little mind once he realized he could neither see their faces nor tell what furniture they were going to be assembling. He was further distracted from their presence by Kurosawa-sensei calling him over to review the results of his practice exam. "Akihito-san, this is nearly perfect! You only missed four questions."   
  
Aki looked at his tutor in shock, "Really?" He moved to the man's side and stared down at the grading noticing a distinct lack of red across the pages.   
  
His tutor nodded, "And two of the one's you missed appear to be definition confusion. They were tricky questions and with you still working on expanding your vocabulary it is no wonder you missed them." He tucked the paper into Aki's hands. "I will work on some lessons to increase vocabulary over the next month. You should show this to Asami-sama, he will be very proud."   
  
"I will." Aki looked down at paper and for the first time he could think of he felt himself smiling naturally.   
  
"How about we take that practice math exam now. I'm certain you'll do well on it and I want to make sure I know what areas to concentrate on when we resume after winter break."   
  
Aki looked at his tutor as he settled back at the dining table, "winter break?"   
  
Kurosawa nodded, "It is common for students to break over the New Year's holiday. It usually only lasts 2 weeks, though Asami-sama has decided to extend yours for nearly three. That will be fine though, as it will give me enough time to spend with family in Yokohama and still gather the finial materials you'll need to study for the exam in the middle of February."   
  
Aki frowned then, "Do you think I'll pass?"   
  
Kurosawa nodded, "Yes, if you don't allow yourself to get distracted. You've done excellently in Literature, Mathematics, Science and Writing. You are also doing fine in History. Your English could use significant work but that portion of this test won't weigh heavily in the final scores. The school gives it to know where to place you in the foreign language curriculum, should you be admitted."   
  
Aki smiled; Asami-sama would be proud and for the first time in nearly six weeks Aki finally felt like he was earning his keep.   
  
Kurosawa cleared the table and then laid a pile of papers in front of Aki, "This is the most recent Math test the school has given. It will not be exactly the same as the one you will take in February but it covers all the same materials. Like we did with this morning's Science practice we'll be timing this test." He took out his cell phone and typed on the screen, "You have ninety minutes to finish this portion of the exam. I will give you a thirty minute and a fifteen minute warning when you've reached that limit, understand?"   
  
Aki nodded and picked up his pencil. Kirosawa nodded, "You may begin."   
  
The sounds of muted conversation from the end of the hallway faded from Aki's hearing as he turned the papers over and read the first problem.   
  
Aki would never know how long he worked on the Math test before he was mentally jarred from his concentration. He did know that he'd been working on multiplying fractions. He'd just started to write down his answer to the current problem when a voice he'd hoped he'd never hear again sounded from down the hallway. He wasn't even sure what Yuri yelled nor was he cognizant of Kirosawa angrily asking the group to quiet down while his student was testing.   
  
He did remember later that he closed his eyes. He remembers feeling his face go white and fighting the bile that clawed its way up his throat. He remembered forcing his eyes open and forcing his hands to write the answer he no longer remembered clearly on his papers. He'd refused to look at the workers bringing in more pieces of whatever it was they were putting together and tried to block out the sounds of their conversations and work the math problems in front of him only to find he couldn't.   
  
He started sweating and the bile was starting to refuse to stay down. He jumped up and ran to his bathroom. He heard Kirosawa and Toshiro call out "Akihito-san!" He couldn't respond. He knew if he opened his mouth to say anything he'd throw up his lunch and snack.   
  
He barreled down the short hall only to run smack into a large hard body. Two hands suddenly gripped his upper arms painfully. Aki looked up into Yuri's face. The man's smile didn't reach his eyes as he whispered, "So this is where you've been hiding, Aki."


	5. Fear and Anxiety

Asami rushed back to the penthouse. He berated himself the whole way. He shouldn't have given in to Akihito's request for something sweet for his afternoon snack today. He'd only caved because the boy rarely asked for anything. The sweet was the only thing the boy had ever requested.   
  
It had been Kurosawa-sensei that dialed his private number. Akihito had apparently had some sort of panic attack while taking a practice Math exam. The tutor was flummoxed as to why, Math was the boy's best subject and he should have cleared the problems easily and well within the time limit. The tutor also reported the boy ran headlong into one of the men putting in the new desk and cabinets in Asami's large office. The boy had then fainted from what Kurosawa could only assume was embarrassment. Asami had gotten a text from Toshiro saying much the same thing.   
  
Still the sweets were probably partially to blame. He'd need to check with Kurosawa about when he planned on having the boy take the practice exams. Pure sweets right before one were probably not a good idea. Akihito was still easily stressed over anything he felt Asami wanted and the boy had put getting into the private school as one of Asami's high priority wishes. He was already losing sleep over the all the information he needed to memorize for the history portion; maybe he was asking too much from the boy?   
  
He didn't wait for Kazumi to open his door. As soon as the limo stopped, he was out and striding towards his private elevator. The trip to the top floor seemed longer than normal. Asami could admit to himself he was worried. The psychologist working with Akihito had warned him the boy may have a break down. That he still felt like he had to earn his keep or he would be punished; that he was waiting for the fairytale to be over and for Asami to show his true self. The elevator came to a stop and Asami suddenly felt how long the hallway was to his front door.   
  
Takeo stood outside. After Akihito feinted, the workers were sent home. The young guard bowed to Asami as he approached, "Asami-sama, Tashiro is outside Akihito-sama's room. The young man is awake but he refuses to speak with us." He opened the door for his boss.   
  
"Do you know what happened?" Asami paused before entering.   
  
"No, sir, I was in your office overseeing the workers setting up the young master's desk. Their boss had sent one of them out to get more appropriately sized screws but the youngster returned with the wrong size. According to Kurosawa-sensei the boy felt sick and was returning to his room to rest when he bumped into the man. Akihito-sama passed out when the man greeted him."   
  
"Greeted, him?"   
  
"According to Kurosawa-sensei, yes. The man said he was sorry; the boy had looked like his young cousin and he'd forgotten himself."   
  
"Get me the names and pictures of the workers that were here today," Asami ordered as he entered the penthouse. It was quiet; there were no sounds of softly turning pages or minute movements from the kitchen beyond the wall. The washer was quiet, even though Asami knew Akihito usually washed the bathroom and kitchen towels on Tuesday afternoons. In short the place felt like it had before the boy had started living with him.   
  
He removed his shoes and slipped on his house slippers, crossed the living area, and turned the corner into the penthouse's short hall way. There he found Toshiro standing stiffly next to the door to Akihito's room and Kurosawa leaned against the wall across from it. The tutor stood and bowed as Asami approached, "Asami-sama, I apologize for not seeing how stressed the boy was becoming."   
  
"I did not see the signs either, Kurosawa-sensei. Tell me, though, do you believe it was only the intense studying he's been doing these past few weeks that caused him to feint? I told you of his life before becoming my ward to prepare you for what others would see as strange reactions for a teenager."   
  
Kurosawa frowned, "I can say that before the workers showed up he was excited. He only missed four questions on the science practice exam." The man looked directly into Asami's eyes as he said, "It was the first natural smile I've ever seen him wear." The man smiled then frowned and shook his head, "He was nearly three quarters through the practice Math exam when the older of the two workers started yelling. Akihito-san went white, sir and just stopped. It actually took me a couple of minutes to realize he wasn't just stuck over a problem and was actually no longer even working on the test. I tried to turn his mind back to the task, but he said he felt sick."   
  
"Kurosawa-sensei called me over at that point sir." Toshiro took up the story then. "Takeo was in the office with the workers and Kurosawa-sensei was worried about Akihito-sama making it to his room on his own. He looked like he was dizzy. He made it to the end of the hallway when the older of the workers ran into him. The man steadied him but….." Toshiro paused.   
  
Asami was about to prompt him to finish when the young guard took a deep breath, "The man looked down at Akihito-sama and whispered something to him. He claimed later he was just apologizing to the boy and that he'd called him after one of his younger cousins because they looked so alike, but sir, I would swear he was lying. I may have only been Akihito-sama's guard for a few days but the young master wears his feelings on his face. Asami-sama, Akihito was terrified of the man."   
  
Asami nodded, "Takeo implied the same I have asked for names and pictures of the men from him. Also could you please find out how the furniture company picked them for this job?"   
  
"Hai!" Toshiro bowed again then opened the door to Akihito's shadowed room, "He awoke as I put him to bed and wouldn't let me leave any light on."   
  
Asami nodded again and steeled himself for dealing with whatever state his boy was in beyond the opening.   
  
Toshiro gently closed the door once Asami was past the entrance. The room became startlingly dark. There were no lights on in the space and the thick floor to ceiling curtains pulled across the windows did their job better than Asami had actually planned. Only the barest bit of light escaped the thin line of space between the curtains' edge and the floor. It was only enough light for Asami to ascertain the boy was not tucked up in the bed but was instead curled into a tight ball in the room's far corner.   
  
Aki huddled in the corner. It was where he belonged. He'd forgotten these past weeks that he wasn't allowed a bed and when he'd woken to find himself on one he'd quickly left it and returned to the corner he was supposed to sleep in. He didn't know how long he sat there before he heard voices outside the door. The sound did make him pull himself tighter. If he was showing how good he would be maybe his new owner wouldn't let Yuri punish him?   
  
He refused to do more than peek when the door opened. It filled briefly with a large man in a billowing coat. The light was behind the man making him larger and more threatening. Aki curled his arms over his head while trying and failing to hold in his whimpers. He had to be quiet, Yuri always hit harder when he made noise.   
  
Asami crossed the dark room and slid down the wall nearest his boy. Akihito curled away from him.   
  
The first week the boy had been with him he'd often flinched from Asami's or anyone's touch. The psychologist had prepared written notification and instruction for every other professional that had interacted with the boy. She had lectured Asami, Krirshima, Kazumi, and six of Asami's personal guards, including Tashiro and Takeo on what to watch for and how to deal with Akihito when he reacted just like this.   
  
Strangely the boy had only flinched from Kirishima and Asami. He had quickly worked out from his question and answer sessions with the boy that his former 'owner' had only every allowed himself and his second to actually hit the boy. While Akihito was nervous around Asami's other men and the doctor's that Asami took him to see it only because they could tell Asami or his second something that would merit punishment. So it was only the two of them that ever had to deal with Akihito actually withdrawing from them.   
  
The instructions he'd received had been very specific, sit nearby as quietly and still as possible. Allow the boy to make the first move. Asami had only had to do the procedure twice before this. Kirishima had sat with the boy once in the first couple of days when Asami had been required to attend a meeting downtown and Kirishima had come to the penthouse to find the boy had fallen and broken the glass of water on the bedside table. He'd been trying to get up to pee. The resulting broken glass, wet bedding, and the fact he'd ended up going on himself had meant that by the time the outside guard had gotten to the room Aki had already dragged himself to the same corner he sat in now. It had taken nearly an hour before he'd peeked out from his arms that afternoon.   
  
From the boy's pallor and the scratches on his arms where he was trying to grab hold to cover his head completely Asami figured this time might take longer.   
  
They sat until the sun was no longer peeking from under the curtains and the only light was that from the under the hallway door. Asami heard Kirishima speak with Toshiro and knew that Kurosawa had left for his own apartment. Toshiro stayed and Kirishima had moved away from the door. Still they sat. Toshiro finally moved away from the boy's door and the penthouse grew quiet. The light in the hallway was turned out and Asami heard the front door firmly closed.   
  
He wasn't certain how much longer it was before he felt more than saw Akihito look at him. He slowly moved his hand across the floor between the two of them then left it palm up next to the boy's hip. You could only just see it with the city lights creeping from under the curtains.   
  
Aki looked up when it grew nearly totally dark. He blinked and glanced at the man sitting next to him. It took several seconds for him to realize it was Asami-sama. He heard the man reach towards him across the floor and was surprised that he hadn't been pulled into the man's lap. He glanced down and the saw the man's hand just sitting next to his hips, palm up and open as if in invitation.   
  
He hesitated but slowly reached out his own hand and placed it in the upturned one. When all Asami-sama did was gently squeezed back Aki rose to his keens and shuffled closer. Apparently that was the only sign the older man needed.   
  
Aki found himself dragged into the man's lap and wrapped in both of the man's strong arms. He responded by whispering promises that he'd be good. He was sorry for whatever rule he broke he didn't do it on purpose. Please, please don't let Yuri belt him.   
  
Asami forced his sudden anger down and forced his limbs to stay softly wrapped about his boy. Yuri was the name of the second the boy had said punished him before Asami had found him. The boy seemed to not know the man's last name nor the name of the 'Boss' as Akihito called his former owner. He didn't even know the name of the hotel or the address where he'd been living. The closest Asami had gotten to a location was that they could hear planes take off and land from the Narita International Airport. The boy had talked about climbing to the top of the building when he was little and pretending that he was on one of them flying away from Japan and the 'Boss'.   
  
Yuri's name however came up often. Mainly in the middle of the night when Akihito's nightmares seized him and he trashed about the bed, a nightly occurrence to which Asami had only found one solution. Asami had started going to bed about an hour after his boy. Every night Asami would carry the frightened boy into his own room and settle him on the extra wide, extra-long custom bed. It had started that first night when the boy's crying had caused Asami to burst into the boy's room worried he'd fallen and hurt himself further.   
  
Asami adjusted the boy in his arms and stood from the floor. It was so much Asami's strength that allowed him to do so, though he was strong. It was more that his boy was still underweight and years of abuse and insufficient nutrition had prevented him from growing the way he should. The boy's father had been almost one hundred and eighty-three centimeters tall; Akihito would be lucky to reach one hundred and seventy.   
  
He carried the boy across the hall and sat him gently on the edge of the bed closest to the door, "Sit here for just a minute." He went into the closet then and was unsurprised when he found the boy exactly has he'd placed him. He tossed the sleeping pants in his hands across the bed and picked the boy up again asking almost conversationally, "Do you think you can wash without getting your cast wet or do you need help?"   
  
He kissed the boy's forehead gently when Akihito shook it 'no' and then sat the boy down on the bench inside the walk in shower. "I'll take these slippers and set them by the sink and I'll come back with your pajamas. Just toss your clothes on the floor and I'll move them to the basket once I have you settled in bed." He ruffled Akihito's hair and smiled down at him. "Take your time; I'm going to make you some hot chocolate." He moved back to the door way after placing the slippers on the floor. Akihito voice stopped him there.   
  
Aki wasn't certain exactly what was going on but Asami-sama hadn't done anything to indicate what he'd done wrong or why after weeks of ownership Yuri had been brought into the penthouse. Instead the man was beign extra careful of him. Acting like Aki might break if he was held to tightly or moved to roughly. It was confusing. Wasn't he in trouble?   
  
At first when Asami-sama brought him into his bedroom Aki decided that Yuri was a warning. His presence was to remind Aki of the consequences for failing to please his owner. Tonight Asami would give him new rules and Yuri would make sure he followed them. Yet, something didn't fit with that line of thought. Why would Asami-sama wait six weeks? It couldn't be because he wanted Aki in good health or physical condition. Aki himself had hear the doctor's tell Asami that it would another week before the casts could come off and possibly another six weeks after that before he would be able to move about completely on his own. What was Yuri going here.   
  
As the man was leaving the bathroom a memory from the first night came to Aki. "There is no limit on what or how many questions you are allowed to ask." Asami-sama was leaving the bathroom when Aki finally screwed up the courage, "Will you tell me what I did to have Yuri come here?"   
  
Asami stopped at the question; he'd promised to answer whatever questions he could answer and while that would always leave out full answers to questions about his business the boy had never asked any of those. This was the type he asked, "What did I fail to do? What rule did I break? What am I doing wrong?" Asami only ever had one answer to those types of question.   
  
He turned and entered the shower. He sat next to Akihito on the long bench under the rain showerheads and actually sighed, "You didn't do or fail to do or break any rule to bring the man you are afraid of here, Kitten. We don't know his full name nor knew what he looked like and he slipped through our security check of the workers cleared to come into the penthouse." He gently grasped Akihito's chin and turned the boy's face to look at him. "I promise, he will never be allowed near you again."   
  
He pulled his now sobbing boy back into his arms and rocked him gently for several minutes before carrying him out to the bed. Showering could wait; Akihito wasn't actually dirty and right now he needed cuddling more than he needed a bath.   
  
Asami watched the video feed from his office at the top of Sion building as Kazumi and his elite squad infiltrated the rundown hotel less than ten blocks from the car garage Aki had climbed into Asami's limo at. The team was usually hired to rescue kidnapped dignitaries or the members of Yakuza families pulled into their turf wars. Most had trained with the United States Seals or the British Special Boat Service teams. They were better trained and more expensive than even his top tier body guards which were hired out at a rate of a million US dollars a month.   
  
Hiring this group took more than money. Asami and his two most trusted men had to agree that the situation the men went into was for the better good. This group had gone to India and helped rescue the young trapped soccer team and this group had raided the international shipping tanker to rescue a Diet member's missing daughter and uncovered an international human trafficking ring.   
  
The task they had might not be as formidable as those previous jobs but after their briefing they'd all agreed that it was equally as important. Tonight was voluntary. Each man had been told before hand what fate waited the men they would capture. Each had been given the choice to walk away from this and be completely clear. After all what they were doing was not sanctioned by the Tokyo police. In truth numerous bribes had been paid to ensure that there were no police in a five block perimeter of the dank trashy hotel.   
  
Using the little information that Akihito had shared they'd planned as carefully as they could. Apparently there was a curfew for members. All of them including enforcers were to be back before the sun pinked the eastern skyline. So it was that Asami's men were breaching the building just as the sun rose.   
  
The video feed crackled as the team counted down the impending attack. When Kazumi said 'ichi' the team channel was full of shouting. The words 'Down', 'Stop', 'raise your hands', and 'I will shoot you' were backed by frightened yells and occasional gun fire. In all they captured fifteen males between thirty and fifteen.   
  
Kazumi was walking up and down a long line of young men. He asked each of them the same question; which one of them was the 'Boss'. The youngest pointed to the younger of the two older men. One of which Asami already knew to be Yuri from the pictures taken from the Penthouse security cameras. The other much to Asami's surprise was Ogata Daichi. Asami nodded at Kirishima who ordered the Sion troops to secure the two leaders for travel. The others they were to finger print and identify. Three were no older than Akihito and it was clear from their condition that they had not had much better lives than his boy. They were to be taken to Sion's hospital and the correct authorities notified. The others were to be deposited at the nearest police station.   
  
Asami looked over at the larger of the two couches in his office. Akihito was sound asleep. The sedative Yasuo-hakishi had given the boy was supposed to last another couple of hours. Normally the boy would be tucked up in his bed at this hour but since Yuri had gotten into the penthouse and therefor knew where Akihito was living Asami had started taking the boy with him everywhere he went.   
  
Mainly they'd traveled between the penthouse and Sion's main offices. They had taken on trip to the orthopedic surgeon to look at Akihito's healing wrist and ankle. Asami was glad the hard casts were off and that boy had been switched to braces about his ankle and wrist. According to the surgeon those could probably come off in another four weeks as long as Akihito kept to his physiotherapist instructions.   
  
For three weeks Akihito had spent his day in Asami's office. The boy had photographed the sights from the wall of windows it contained so many times Asami was certain there was nothing left to take pictures of. Still the boy had been ecstatic that he'd been allowed out of the penthouse and the one trip they'd taken to the theater had been worth the hassle of increased security and Asami's personal boredom at the movie. Akihito however had loved it. His Kitten had never been afraid of ghosts and the zombies in the movie didn't scare him either.   
  
So the boy had stayed here with Asami as the time for raiding the boy's tormentor's hotel came closer. Akihito had been told, because he'd asked, what Asami was going to do this evening, though not the full extent. The boy had taken the news calmly but had refused to go back to the penthouse with Toshiro when the time had come.   
  
The boy admitted to be afraid of being at the penthouse without Asami and Asami had not wanted to set up a situation where Akihito felt he had to disobey in order to feel safe. So he'd allowed the boy to stay and have a supper with him. The orange soda he'd allowed the boy to consume had contained powdered soporific measured and added by Kirishima before serving the two hot pot, a treat that Akihito had started liking in the past few weeks now that he'd mastered using chop sticks.   
  
Asami looked back at the screen and watched as his men cleaned the site. Every item they brought with them was policed and collected. An hour after they'd first engaged the enemy they were clear of the building and all traces they'd been there were gone.   
  
Asami stood, swung his long dark wool coat around his shoulders, slipped his dark leather gloves over his palms, and settled his white cashmere scarf about his neck. Kirishima met him at the long couch tucking the cotton and fleece blanket about the boy securely after Asami pulled it and the boy into his arms. The trip down the elevator was quiet and Toshiro and Takeo led the way to the running limo checking their perimeter and nodding to each of their escorts. Asami slid into the back barely seconds after leaving the building proper.   
  
He was loath to release his Kitten but riding unbelted in a normal car was bad enough the bullet resistant materials of Asami's limos made their crumple zones less than perfect however and Asami would be damn before he put his Kitten in danger. So he gently deposited the boy in the seat next to him and secured the boy's belt across his lap and over his shoulder. Asami sat next to him to help keep him upright while drugged and unable to maintain his own balance.   
  
When they arrived at his private air bay near Narita National Airport he was as careful pulling his boy out as he'd been putting him the limo. They were farthest from the rest of the traffic the international airport had and almost complete cut off from the bulk of sightlines in the city. It was nestled up to a national green space full of trees and thickets with private access.   
  
His Bombardier Global 7000 was prepped for flight and Kirishima went straight to the cockpit to confer with the tower about takeoff. Asami paused before he carried Akihito aboard and watched as two fabric covered cages were loaded into the lower cargo hold. The grunts coming from the cages made him smile.   
  
He climbed up the steps and settled his charge into the window seat of the front of the plane. He stood after securing the boy's seatbelt and nodded to Kazumi as he boarded, "Did your secure our guests?"   
  
"Hai, Asami-sama, secure as two wild animals can be." He grinned and then climbed into the cockpit with Kirishima.   
  
The plane was closed up after two stewards boarded and adjourned to the crew cabin. Asami settled into the seat next to his boy and secured his own seatbelt. Kazumi's take off was smooth and stress free. As soon as the seatbelt light went off Asami carried Akihito back to the king sized bed and laid him down. He stripped the boy down to his t-shirt and underwear and tucked him into the blankets before disrobing himself and settling down himself. Kirishima would wake them in plenty of time to dress and eat before they landed in Bali.   
  
Aki woke to a strange humming noise. When he opened his eyes he realized he wasn't in a familiar place. In a panic he tried to sit up only to feel two large arms squeeze him from behind. It was then he realized the warmth he felt along his back was that of not just blankets but a large body pressed against his. He turned to look over his shoulder to see Asami-sama asleep on top of the blankets covering the large bed in the tiny room.   
  
He squirmed until the arms around him loosened enough for him to turn over. As he did so he realized he was only wearing his boxers and t-shirt. Asami-sama though was clothes in dark sweatpants, a matching t-shirt stretched across the man's toned chest and hugged his stomach. His raven hair lay tossed from sleep across his closed eyes.   
  
It was an Asami-sama he'd never seen. Peaceful and quiet in his sleep he looked as defenseless as Aki often felt. It was fascinating and Aki found his hand reaching out to push the hair from the man's face and tracing the man's eyebrows and eyelids. Before following the patriarch nose down to his lips and then running his fingertips across his jaw.   
  
Asami-sama held so much power over him yet the thought the man might awaken and catch Aki at his exploration didn't frighten him. Many things frighten him. Not passing the exam in Febuary and disappointing the man that lay next to him. Getting into the school and not being able to cut it was another fear. What would he do if he couldn't get good grades? He'd never been to school before. Still those were minor fears. He could figure out how to correct his path if they happened. His worst fear. The one he refused to speak aloud was that he'd wake to find Asami-sama and the time he'd spent with him was a dream.   
  
The thought was so terrifying that he sat up pushing the man's arm from his waist and placed both palms on the man's shoulders. He shook him, "Kishi. Kishi! Kishi, wake up!"   
  
Asami came awake violently at the desperate sound of his Kitten's voice. The boy was nearly knocked over as Asami sat completely up. Only his quick reflexes enabled him to gather the boy to his chest covering his head and taking stock of the room before he relaxed and looked down at the boy, "Did the new room frighten you, Kitten? It is just the bedroom on the jet." He glanced over at the clock on the wall and frowned; they had only been in the air for a couple of hours it would be another five before they were even close to landing.   
  
He was about to suggest they go back to sleep when the boy wrapped his arms about Asami's torso burying his head in Asami's chest and mumbling, "Not frightened of the room."   
  
Asami chuckled at the soft noise and worked the boy's arms from about his waist and placed them about his neck so he could lie back down. It took some maneuvering because after that Akihito refused to let Asami go. It meant that the older man had wrap the blankets about the boy haphazardly but eventually he got the boy covered enough to suite his self. It got cold at ten thousand meters and he wasn't going to risk the boy getting a chill.   
  
Once settled he wrapped his arms back about the boy's waist, "Want to tell me what scared you?"   
  
Aki shook his head 'no'. Asami hadn't asked what had caused him to shout and shake the man awake with his terror filled voice. He didn't have to admit that he was being silly and worried over nothing.   
  
"I see. Well I can't do anything if you don't tell me, Kitten and I would very much like to vanquish all of your dragons."   
  
Aki looked up at that. He knew that Asami-sama had spent some time as a child in France. Aki wasn't even sure where that was, but the man had told him the tale of St. George slaying the dragon. Apparently European dragons had no manners and were at odds with the humans there. "I'm not a princess."   
  
Asami chuckled and Aki laid his head back down on the man's chest smiling at the thought his token protest had brought the man laughter. Besides he liked how the laughter rumbled through his body and made Aki bounce.   
  
"No, you are not a princess. How about I would very much like to make your wishes come true?"   
  
Aki shook his head at that one as well, but didn't raise his head as he replied, "I may be a thief, but you're no genie. Besides the real protagonist in that store is still a girl and she was far more clever than I'll ever be."   
  
Asami ran his hand through the boy's hair, "Oh, doubt that. You're quiet intelligent and clever in your own way." He smiled when the boy shook his head 'no' again but then said, "Well, if I'm not allowed to slay your dragons or grant your wishes then what will you allow me to do, little Kitten? For I would very much like to ensure you are now and forever will be happy with me."   
  
The boy paused hugging of Asami's waist and looked up again. He peered into Asami's eyes for several seconds, "Can you promise me this isn't a dream? That I won't wake to find I'm still with the Boss and Yuri?"   
  
Asami rolled them to their sides, ensuring Akihito's arm wasn't trapped under neither them as he settled the boy partially on his chest and right arm, "Yes, Kitten. That I can promise. You are not dreaming and you will never wake to find yourself at their lack of mercy again. I will keep you safe for the rest of my life."   
  
Aki nodded then yawned and closed his eyes. He knew it was just greed that had pressed the words that rose in his thoughts. He wouldn't ask more of the man; it was after all unfair to want that assurance for the rest of his own life.


	6. Pleasure and Pain

Aki sat on the sandstone wall between the house's deck and the sandy stretch of land leading to the ocean. He watched the sky darken with clouds and raised his head to the wind flowing form off the sea. The sliding door opened behind him and he felt his stomach curl with comfort at the smells of warm food. Kirishima called out to him and he slid to his feet and crossed the stone paved patio to the table.   
  
There were bowls of seaweed salad a dish Kirishima had recently taught him to make and Aki found he wanted at practically every meal. Two kinds of grilled meat, skewers of grilled veggies and steamed rice. His stomach made appreciative noises. Asami-sama had promised he could eat as much as he wanted and that for tonight he didn't have to stick to his meal plan. Still he didn't want to eat too much of the feast before him. Kirishima-san had promised that there was Strawberry Mille Crêpes flown overnight from Lady M in New York.   
  
Aki didn't know what that meant, other than it was a cake from some large city in the United States. When he'd not even been certain of that Asami had instructed Kirishima to ensure the School summer break was long enough to take him there personally. Aki had just shook his head at the man's outrageousness and asked if the cake was any good. Kirishima swore it was worth the cost of getting it flown overnight to them. So he'd have to ensure he saved room for at least a couple of pieces.   
  
He sat to the right of the head of table and glanced back into the small beach cabin. When several minutes past and Asami had still not showed he sighed and picked up the fork that people in Bali provided the cabins with. It was both harder and easier to eat with. Still Kirishima said that much of the world didn't use chopsticks and if he was planning on traveling with Asami often he'd need to master the utensil.   
  
Kirishima finished serving him and sat down across from him. "does something taste poorly, Akihito-kun?"   
  
Aki looked up and shook his head, "No, Kirishima-san, everything tastes wonderful. I'm hoping we get these recipes before we head back to Tokyo. I think I could make them with all the equipment Asami-sama has in his kitchen."   
  
The glasses wearing right hand man to Asami smiled. "I'm certain we can get the hotel chef to part with more of them. He was most excited that you loved his seaweed salad to ask for the recipe. However, if the meal is to your liking, what has caused that look of disappointment on your face?"   
  
Aki looked at the head of the table, "We've been here almost two weeks and Asami-sama hasn't eaten on diner with us. I wanted to spend more time with him than we've gotten." He pressed his lips together and bowed his head, "Sorry, I shouldn't be so ungrateful. Thank you, for the meal Kirishima-san."   
  
The man across from him smiled slightly, "You've nothing to apologize for, Akihito-kun. It is true that Asami has been busy; however, I can promise that after tonight he'll be completely free and instructed me to block all work from his calendar for the rest of your stay."   
  
"Really?" Aki snapped his head up from where he'd been playing with his food, "He'll be free? Not even phone calls."   
  
"Not even phone calls. They will all be routed to me first and I promise only the direst of situations will require his presence. I can handle most items on his behalf."   
  
Aki broke into a grin and shoveled a fork full of the grilled chicken into his mouth he chewed swallowed and then asked around his still half full mouth of food, "Do you think Asami-sama will go parasailing with me tomorrow?"   
  
Kirishima had the sense not to tell the boy that he was the only person that Asami Ryuichi would ever even consider parasailing for. Instead he nodded, "I was told to tell you to make a list of activities you wanted to do and Asami-sama would look over it and make as many arrangements as he could when he gets back."   
  
The boy's smile got bigger and he settled to eating. His appetite was enormous. But the ortho surgeon had said the boy didn't have to wear his braces while swimming and the boy had taken full advantage of that fact by spending almost every waking moment in the surrounding ocean. When the boy starting waking in the middle of the night with a growling stomach his nutritionist had told them start letting the boy eat as much as he wanted at the morning and evening meals. The boy still woke hungry, but Asami had arranged for fresh fruit to be delivered every morning and Aki had yet to find a food he didn't like.   
  
Unless you counted onions; the boy's distaste for the root was quickly becoming legendary among the Sion guards. It wasn't helped that the boy had so far been caught hiding them in the villa's potted plants, burying them in the sand, trying to bribe Takeo and Toshiro to eat them for him, and the most famous claiming he was saving them to feed the group of crabs he'd found living in the tide pools down the beach from the cabin. Kirishima had just stopped putting them on the boy's plate.   
  
The pair ate in silence for nearly twenty minutes. Kirishima ate slowly and chewed thoroughly while Akihito all but stuffed his face. The ever vigilant secretary however noticed when the boy had started slowing down and signaled the waiting hotel staff to start clearing the table as soon as the boy sat down his fork and placed his napkin on top of his plate.   
  
The boy smiled at the cleaning staff and stood. He stretched raising his arms over his head and standing on his tip toes. Kirishima checked the boy's ribs as the sleeveless t-shirt rose past his lean waist. He was glad to see they were no longer countable from a distance and that the strengthening exercises his physiotherapist had given him included ones for his core. The boy would probably never bulk up the way Kazumi or Asami were however given time he would develop his own lean strength. He would recommend to Asami that the boy be provided some self-defense and martial art classes once the therapist said he could handle them.   
  
Until then he and Kazumi would be educating the boy on how to assess a room for doors and alternate escape exits should the door become blocked. It was already rumored that Asami had someone to protect in the underworld. Kazumi and he wouldn't allow the boy to be used against their boss. Part of being protected was to understand how to assess situations and prevent from being trapped. While the boss would probably never allow the boy to be without guards it would be good if he understood some of their reasoning.   
  
While Kirishima was planning on how to protect him Aki walked back to the wall and sat on it again. The sky beyond the circle of their patio lights was dark. No moon shone on the sea tonight as the sky was covered with dark clouds. Out beyond where Aki had been swimming each day the sky over the sea flashed with steaks of lightening. Aki's hands itched for his camera.   
  
Kirishima was caught by surprise when the boy leapt up and all but ran back into the house. He was still rising when the boy returned his almost ever present camera hung around his neck. He put the view finder up to his eye and set about rapidly taking photos. He lowered it and fiddled with the settings before raising it again. Kirishima smiled and added finding a photography teacher to the list of employees Sion needed to acquire. Asami would grow rather irritated if the boy missed out on anything he had his heart set on.   
  
Still after the boy had spent nearly an hour taking photos Kirishima called out to him and reminded him that there was cake to be eaten and Asami had already rented several horror films the boy had been hoping to see. The boy looked back, nodded, and politely followed his caretaker into the villa for the evening.   
  
Kirishima set the boy up with two large slices of the expensive cake, a mug of hot chocolate, and the remote to the overly large television in the main room. Takeo and Toshiro were posted in the room with him along with another half dozen trusted men patrolling outside. Aki was engrossed in the first film when the first drops of the incoming storm fell on the roof. He never even heard Kirishima leave.   
  
Asami really had been busy the past two weeks. He had meetings with many of his legitimate international clients and partners. Several video calls and had to give two separate speeches at the conference the hotel was hosting on international trade and its effect on local economies. Then there were the illegitimate partners. He could only speak with them after the conference meetings were over.   
  
Two he was entertaining tonight however hadn't come to make deals with him. In truth they'd come to bear witness. Liu Fei Long of the Hong Kong Baishe and Mikhail Arbatov out of Russia were neither his partners nor his clients. They were in fact as close as he would ever come to say his equals. Fei Long had been forced to accept leadership of a Hong Kong triad before he was into his twenties and had been brutal in his take over after his brother had killed their father and reviled that Fei Long was adopted. Yantsui's sale of his own flesh and blood to human traffickers swayed the triad to support Fei Long's take over. The Baishe had no issue with the trade however blood always came first.   
  
Mikhail likewise had been required to usurp control of his family businesses from his uncle just after his own twentieth birthday. The man had been heavily into human trafficking, a venture that could have been overlooked until he trafficked Mikhail's mother and sister as part of his takeover when Mikhail's father had died while Mikhail was only fourteen. A different Uncle succeeded in escaping Russia with the young boy and worked closely with friends in the Italian Mafia to put Mikhail back at the head of the Arbatovs.   
  
Tonight, both men would participate in partial payback for the sins of one of the principle players in both their stories. The Yuri that his Kitten was so afraid of was none other than Mikhail's missing uncle and the very man that had bought young Tao, Yantsui's son and now Fei Long's ward. Both men after long discussion agreed that the finial killing blow would be dealt by Asami's hand, however Asami was more than willing to allow both of them time with the monster that took pleasure from beating young boys.   
  
First however Asami planned on having Yuri watch Ogata Daichi's punishments. Like Yuri with Mikhail's mother and sister and even young Tao, Daichi would have known who Akihito was even at not quite five. It wasn't like Asami had tried to hide the fact; he'd foolishly believed the rules about involving civilians. Though when he thought about it logically much of the blame could probably be laid at his feet. The Tabaka's wouldn't have even been known and Akihito certainly wouldn't have been thought about had Asami not paid so very much attention to him.   
  
Kirishima convinced him that he'd suffered enough and both agree that Akihito had suffered more than enough for Asami's hubris. His second had also convinced him that the boy should be made part of his own security. A total lack of fear or even trepidation about the world around him had allowed the conditions for his kidnapping that he was more wary now wasn't because of the worst type of training.   
  
Asami would correct that. One by providing the best possible security force money could buy. He knew it was true because diplomats, heads of state, and the wealthiest people in the world all but begged Sion to allow them contracts with even just one of his men. They'd all be gnashing their teeth to know a whole squad was assigned to protect one small teenage boy.   
  
He heard the sound of rain tumble down onto the tin roof of the small warehouse he and his men were in. Two cages with wires running into them from two small portable generators sat in the middle of the dirt floor. The place was an old Coconut storage facility built by the farmer that used to own the twenty acres around the burned out farmhouse nearby. The man had supplemented his meager income by selling the large fruits to an export company. When an electrical fire burned down the house and he died, his daughter was more than happy to sell out to Sion. The land was in a good place. The soil was rich, indigenous tress and foliage surrounded the open plot, and it had both a visual sight line and walking access to a semi-private beach. He should find out if Akihito would like a house here.   
  
The sounds of an arriving vehicle interrupted Asami's musing. He stood from the chair he was in and turned to watch Kirishima lead two tall men and their bodyguards into the small warehouse. One slim with long raven hair and dressed in a black cheongsam embroidered with a long gold and red dragon twisting its way through dark clouds over a pair of slim black dress slacks. The Beretta strapped to his thigh was easily accessible via the split in the long cheongsam; exactly where the dozen or so knives Asami knew he also carried were hidden was unknown. Fei Long was as beautiful as he was deadly.   
  
The tall blonde entering with him was muscular where Fei Long was slim. Muscles seemed to be formed on muscles; he had the look of a body builder but walked with the grace of a tiger. Mikhail kept his hair fashionable disheveled just a touch to long for the board room but not long enough to be considered scandalous. Little did the man's several corporations know just how disreputable he was wont to be. His multiple guns were hidden but Asami knew that beneath the linen suit coat over the black t-shirt and black casual jeans at least one of the man's Ruger SR9s was tucked into the hidden right shoulder holster. He never wore his suit coat fully buttoned.   
  
Asami nodded at the two men while their guards sized each other up and spread out around the small room giving no one group a larger concentration than another. They knew each other and knew how each other had obtained and grown their power. However, they were not friends.   
  
"Gentlemen, I hope you've come prepared for tonight's excitement." Asami gestured to the two other seats at the small table he'd been sitting at. As all three men sat Kirishima appeared with trays of drinks for Asami and Makhial and a pot of tea for Fei Long.   
  
The Chinese man smiled and nodded, "As efficient as ever, Kirishima. While I'm certain the answer is no I will always feel compelled to ask if you are certain you don't wish to leave Asami and join me. Yoh, could use such a capable secretary."   
  
"I am honored by your interest Fei-sama; however, I must decline. I am and will always be completely loyal to Asami-sama." Kirishima bowed and stepped behind Asami.   
  
Mikhail laughed, "Everytime. I wish you'd pursue me with the same dedication you pursue Asami's men, Měilì de long."   
  
"I refuse to pursue shaggy monkeys, Arbatov."   
  
Asami almost sighed. The banter between the two men was fraught with sexual tension. It was one of the reasons Asami usually avoided having meeting with both of them at the same time. Mikhail for all his business prowess was always more interested in pursuing the Chinese flower than any deal Asami wanted to discuss. Fei Long remained irritated at Mikhail for his pursuit and at Asami for an imagined slight that had happened nearly four years in the past. He was a functional leader of the Baishe but Asami was certain the man could take them to amazing heights if he would just learn to curb making decisions with his emotions rather than his head. Asami sighed, albeit only to his self.   
  
"Enough banter, you two. I have places to be and don't wish for this to take much longer than a couple or hours." He gestured to the two men standing near the cages. "Pull our guests of honor and put them in their special seats, please."   
  
Fei Long smiled knowingly at Asami, "Only two hours, Asami? That is short for you. Are the rumors I've heard true? Do you have someone special to fly home to now?" Asami's eyes narrowed at the Chinese dragon. Fei Long laughed, "Don't look at me like that. I will not harm your caged butterfly. The Baishe elders may not like it but I will not involve children in our business." He looked Asami in the eyes then, "Though, if he's still with you in eight or so years you would do well not to cross me. I have a completely different view on adults."   
  
"Hey, now, Fei Long. Let's not go making enemies of Asami, yet. The three of us can be at each other's throats should it ever become warranted. Tonight is about justice and I don't feel like breaking up a cat fight between my two Asian partners." Mikhail injected with waving hands, "Let's just put everything else aside and deal with those two."   
  
"I am not your partner." Fei Long sniffed, but he did turn his attention back to the two barely alive men now hanging via chains from the warehouse central ceiling beam.   
  
Asami turned his glare on Mikhail, "I may not remain a partner long if you continue to suggest you'll ever have a chance at my throat. Still you are correct let's get this over with if for no other reason than getting the two of you out of my hair." He nodded to Kazumi, "Ogata first, Suoh. Yuri deserves a show before it is his turn."   
  
The two men had been caged for nearly two week. They wore spiked collars like the ones used to control dogs. As long as they didn't fight or tug to harshly the spikes were loose around their throats otherwise they would tighten and dig at their skin painfully. Asami's men had used them to get the men in and out of their too small cages; Asami didn't want they to start out with any infected wounds that meant they had to be cleaned and fed every day. That the baths were always with freezing water and rough lye soap and the meals were little more than rice gruel couldn't be helped after all as Kirishima and Kazumi were won't to remind the two men. It wasn't like they were earning their keep.   
  
Additionally their cages, where they had been forced to spend the majority of the past two weeks had not only required them to remain mostly folded in upon themselves with knees to chest and head bowed, were both attached to small electrical generators, the kind used for farming fences intended to only scare the plant scavengers off. The current was turned on randomly and while the voltage wasn't enough to kill them it was high enough to prevent them from ever truly relaxing. It had been especially brutal at night for two weeks the men had not been allowed more than short ten minute naps. After all, if Akihito wasn't allowed to sleep because of his nightmares the men that had given them to Asami's Kitten wouldn't be allowed sleep either.   
  
Thus the two men now held up by their wrists via long thin steel chains attached to the warehouse's middle rafter were quite a bit worse for wear. They were necked and Asami was almost disappointed that this wasn't taking place in Tokyo. The weather there tonight was expected to be below freezing with a high possibility of snow. Still Kirishima was correct that it wasn't a good idea to invite both the Baishe and the Arbatovs to his city at the same time. So Bali it was. The island was considered neutral ground by all three and would remain so considering they all needed a place to meet with certain groups and not have to defend territory at the same time.   
  
Fei Long poured another cup of tea and Makhial splashed more vodka into his lowball tumbler as Kazumi slid Yuri to the side and centered the smaller younger Otaga. Asami stood and walked around the table. He stopped slightly to the left side of the man and smiled, "My Kitten says there are a specific number of lashes assigned to breaking the rules of your organization Daichi. I find that to be very efficient. I believe he said it was ten lashes for each infraction plus another ten when you felt the boy needed to be reminded of whom he belonged to?"   
  
Daichi just glared at him. Asami smiled, "It is ok, you don't have to answer. See all my questions tonight are rhetorical. Before we are finished here you will beg to let you die." Asami grabbed the man's hair and jerked him closer so he could speak directly into the man's ear. "And when you do? I'll keep going. There are men in my employ that can keep you alive for months. You tortured my Kitten for years."   
  
He pushed Daichi away so the man swung in the chains. He nodded to Suoh, "Thirty lashes; ten for touching what is mine, ten for doing business in my city without my permission, and ten to remind him just who he chose to cross. You'd better count them aloud Daichi, or I'll have Kazumi start from the top each time you miss a number."   
  
Kazumi started with a thick leather strap. He knew how to wield it so that it would bruise painfully but it didn't break a single bone. When Daichi failed to count out lash number twenty-two however Kazumi switched to knotted whip. On went the lashing. Each time the man missed a number the count would start over and Kazumi would switch to a harsher implement.   
  
In the end Daichi was lashed ninety-seven times. He'd been struck with leather straps of various lengths and thicknesses, several types of whips, and even a handful of canes. Some were so jarring that Daichi got very few numbers out of his mouth before he missed one. Many of the whips were designed to curl about the body leaving long welts wrapped about legs, arms and torso. The end of several were knotted with spikes, glass, or other sharp instruments ensuring that at least the tail edges of the marks would bleed.   
  
The last seven strokes were actually given with an arm length leather whip made of rhinoceros hide called sjambok. The leather was rolled into a tapered-cylindrical whip, thicker at the handle than at the tip. This sjambok was embedded with small sharpened six pointed steel spike. They were tiny version of the spikes used to flatten tires and kept sharp via a special diamond grinder Asami had purchased Kazumi. For though Asami had threatened to keep the man alive Asami honestly didn't feel it was worth the cost. Saichi would die tonight and Asami would keep his promise that the man would never be able to harm Akihito again.   
  
Diachi had fallen unconscious before the last two strikes had fallen. Two of Asami's men poured sea water over him to jar him back awake. The beating had taken nearly an hour because Asami allowed his best interrogator to rest his arms. It took a lot of physical and mental energy to beat someone carefully enough to damage their body to a near pulp and yet not kill them.   
  
After they woke him another of Asami's guards took a blow torch to the man's fingers. By this point he was too horse to scream but his body tried. And the resulting shock might have killed him had he been a luckier person. However he was still alive and awake when Asami stood again.   
  
He really didn't want to spend any more time with the cretin. He pulled his gun and coked it. "I've changed my mind; you aren't worth the cost of keeping you alive. Besides, my Kitten is far more enjoyable to spend time with than you." He rested the gun at the man's nose only to pause when Daichi laughed. "What's so funny?"   
  
Daichi didn't answer and after a few more seconds Asami pulled the trigger the resulting wound destroyed the man's face. No one would be able to visually identify his body. Not that it mattered. His men would be turning both of the night's resulting bodies into shark chum and would feed the creatures before the sun rose in the morning.   
  
Asami returned to his seat and used the warm wet towel Kirishima handed him to clean off the blood splattered across his face and neck. He'd have to burn the suit; still shooting the man's face off himself had been worth the loss. Now it was Yuri's turn.   
  
Asami looked at the other two men as he handed back the now dirty towel, "I believe we agreed to allow Fei Long thirty minutes with Yuri first, correct?"   
  
Makhail nodded, "Yes ten minutes for each day he held young Tao for ransom."   
  
Fei Long stood, "Yes, and then Makhail gets fifteen for each day his mother and sister were missing coming to nearly three hours." He pulled his hair into a thick pony tail and secured it with the thick cloth covered band Yoh handed him. "Whatever are you going to do with that time?"   
  
"Stick around when you are finished and see." Makhail lit an Arturo Fuente Opus cigar. He then offered a light to Asami who had pulled one of his Dunhills out. He flicked his gold and platinum lighter closed after Asami took the light and said, "You might learn a few things from my people."   
  
  
  
Fei Long sniffed, "Perhaps it is you that will learn barbarian. Finesse doesn't always require time." He moved to the hanging man in front of them and took the first of many thin bladed knives from Yoh. "My ward told me of your hospitality when he was with you Yuri. I'm sure you'll be pleased to know he still occasionally has nightmares."   
  
Fei walked around the man barely touching him with the blade but leaving behind a continuous tiny bleeding wound. "I once asked him what I should do to you should I ever catch you and do you know what he said?" Fei had returned to the starting point and a nearly perfect circle of blood now decorated the man's lower torso. Fei smiled, "He said I should ensure you could never move without pain again. It was as vicious as I've ever seen the young thing."   
  
Fei handed the knife back to Yoh who handed him what appeared to be a tiny hallow metal tube sharpened to a fine point. Fei held it up so Yuri could see it. "Do you know what these are?" Yuri chose not to answer. "No, matter I was going to tell you anyway. These are specially developed needles for setting IV tubing into newborns. They are designed to be used on patients who need to be supplied minute quantities of liquid drugs and fluids but who largest veins are almost too small to see."   
  
He smiled then and reached up with the needle and planted it in the man's right arm, "I've had them modified to be longer so they can go deeper and hold several almost microscopic bits of sharpened metal." He dug carefully with the needle smiling when Yuri went stiff, "Ah, yes, you understand now. The beauty of these is that I won't be placing the directly on the nerves. Instead they will be very very close. With practice a person can learn how to move so that the bits of metal don't scrape across the bundles."   
  
Fei withdrew the needle and tapped it's now bloody length against his cheek. "Though, I know of only one person that ever figured it out. All the other's I've done this to have strangely chosen to end their own lives rather the work out the secret."   
  
It took all thirty minutes for Fei long to put his torture in place. Six long tiny needles were inserted into Yuri's body, one for each arm, one for each hand, and one for each leg. When he removed the last needle he smiled and patted the man's leg gently Yuri stiffened screaming before his mind could catch up with the pain.   
  
Fei long turned back from the man and sauntered back to his seat. "I believe he's all yours now Mikhail."   
  
Mikhail nodded and gestured to one of the men he'd brought with him. Then he scowled at Fei Long, "I'm beginning the think I should have insisted on my time first. Those bits of metal aren't going to kill him are they? I don't want him dying from shock."   
  
"No he won't die of over stimulation. I could have put the bits right on the nerves and then we could have watched as he killed himself trying to avoid the pain. However, I knew that would spoil your fun and truthfully he doesn't deserve such kindness." Fei Long nodded thanks to Kirishima for the warm wet cloth he was handed and cleaned his hands and face. "I could have been bloodier and just used the knives but I wasn't certain what you have planned. I may not always like you but even I can concede you deserve your time with this monster."   
  
Mikhail nodded, "Thank you for your consideration, Fei Long. It actually means a lot that you held yourself back for my sake. I will endeavor to not disappoint."   
  
Fei sniffed as he lit his long pipe "Don't let it go to your head."   
  
Mikhail laughed at that point and turned his attention to Yuri. Three of his men surrounded the man. "You know that Yuri believes himself to be a devout Christian. He told me once that it was his duty to god to purge the family of wickedness." He nodded to the three men who each pulled at syringe and fed the drugs into Yuri's prominent veins.   
  
Then they backed off to set up a table of items. Many were recognizable sex toys. There were dildos of various sizes, widths and materials along with nipple clamps, o rings, and a very painful looking cock cage. The metal rings making it up were lined with tiny sharp protrusions on their inner sides. It was also strangely small for a man of Yuri's unhardened girth. This was the first item slipped on him then they fitted the o ring into his mouth before closing it off with a small dildo fitted into the ring. All the noise the man was making due to Fei Long's bits of metal were now muted.   
  
Mikhail stood then, "When I was nine I had a friend that went to the same private school I did. He went missing after a rugby match. He was smaller than the rest of us though not by much and the coach always made him stay behind to help clean up our equipment. Naturally that made him the last one to shower." He picked up a narrow steel dildo with a wide rubber ring for holding and walked behind Yuri I learned what happened to him when we rescued my mother and sister."   
  
Asami and Fei Long did not see what Mikhail did but they assumed it was shoving the metal dildo up Yuri's ass given the sudden stiff posture he tried to assume. The drugs he'd been given were taking effect and one at least had been an aphrodisiac. His dick was trying to get hard only to encounter the sharp spikes and momentarily deflate with bleeding punctures.   
  
Mikhail looked around at the two men smike at the table, "Yuri here caught the coach and my friend having sex in the shower." His arm pulled back and forward harshly fucking Yuri with the cold metal. "This man decided to fix my friend and cut off his balls and penis. He dressed him as a girl and sold him to a sick fucker in Pakistan. I only found him years later because his buyer was the same one that bought my sister."   
  
He yanked the dildo out and tossed on the table. Where he looked over the item layed out for several minutes before selecting a fist sized black leather on with rings of metal at the tip and around the thickest part. There was a set of leather strings attached to the end and a silver button. Mikhail walked back around Yuri's body and shoved the dildo into him. He must have pressed the button because they all heard a low hum.   
  
He walked back around the man and pressed the cigar he held into the man's chest. "I enjoyed killing that Pakistani he was almost as sick as you are Yuri." His helpers tied the leather stings around the cock cage and Yuri's legs.   
  
Mikhail returned to the table and nodded at them, "You have thirty minutes. Enjoy yourselves."   
  
Mikhail's men lowered Yuri and while two stood on his ankles the others took turns fucking the man's mouth. Nearly every one of the men Mikhail brought with him took a turn. The ones that didn't fuck him whipped him, urinated or jerked off on him instead. While they did this Mikhail engaged Asami and Fei Long in actual business.   
  
He wanted partners for a venture with a group in Somalia. They considered themselves modern day vigilantes of the high seas. Targeting transport ships of illegal guns and drugs as well as human cargo. The often kept the guns and would strip the ships of valuable and sellable parts before sink them and their crews. The group was looking for reliable buyers but their goods were too much and too varied for Mikhail to commit to alone. Was either of them interested?   
  
Asami said he would have to look into independently before he could comment and Fei Long said to write up a proposal and submit it to his trusted second. Yoh would speak with him if it was a good deal. Mikhail took their not quiet refusals with good grace and promised to follow up with them at later dates.   
  
When the thirty minutes were up Yuri was a little glassy eyed and obviously fighting the pull of whatever drugs he'd been fed. Mikhail instructed his men to wash the filth off Yuri's body. He didn't want to have to touch it. He then turned to Asami, "Did you give any thought to my proposal from a couple of days ago?"   
  
Asami nodded and Fei Long grimaced, "What proposal? Have you two been scheming things behind my back."   
  
"Calm down Měilì de long." Mikhail said. "I did not bring it up to you because you'd already agreed that Asami would be allowed to determine our Yuri's finial punishment. I only need to know because it will affect what I do in the next hour."   
  
"You will see what we are talking about in about an hour Fei Long." Asami said, "I'm pretty certain you'll be pleased with the decision also. Hold your complaints until then, please."   
  
"Humph," Fei Long lit another pipe and poured a cup of the fresh tea Kirishima had brought him. "Fine, I will hold the rest of my comments until I see what this proposal entails."   
  
Asami nodded as if in thanks and said, "Yes, the interested parties will be here in an hour as you suggested. I know that cuts into your time but you had already indicated you wouldn't mind. Though we'll have to reevaluate his worth now that Fei Long has embedded him with those pieces of metal."   
  
Fei Long smiled, "Oh, I do hope what you are insinuating is what I think it is. If it is then be aware that the pain isn't so much as to ever kill him. provided proper food and water our Yuri here will live a very long time."   
  
Asami nodded, "Then we'll just have to tell the buyers what extra they are getting."   
  
Yuri started struggeling at that point fear crossing his face as his brain caught up with the implications of Asami's words. The three men laughed at him. and Asami said, "Just don't damage him to much."   
  
Mikhail nodded and his men packed up the sex toys and tables before bringing him a large bowie knife and a hatchet. A long bar was tied to Yuri's feet keeping them spread slightly wider than his hips. Then two of Mikhails men stood on the bar preventing Yuri from moving his feet. Mikhail used the hatchet to chop off the man's left toes just where they joined his foot commenting as he swung, "Do either of you know how hard it is to balance and walk when you have no toes? It is impossible to run."   
  
He stepped back as one of his men took a blow torch to the wounds, "My sister does. The man Yuri sold her to cut her's off telling her that sex toys didn't need them and she'd grow used to hobbling soon enough."   
  
He stepped up and proceeded to remove the toes of the right foot as well. He handed the hatchet back to his man and continued conversationally, "She can't wear most shoes. I've sunk a considerable amount of money into technologies to replace them. Sadly the man was correct. She had grown quite used to how she walks."   
  
Asami frowned, "Call Kei next week. I've got a sixty percent partnership in a group researching cutting edge prosthetics. Even if they don't already have some ideas they love challenges and can probably come up with something."   
  
Mikhail looked shocked, "An altruistic Asami, will wonders never cease?" He looked at Yuri, "This man," he pointed at Asami, "has just gotten you an additional finger to keep on each hand. I hope you're grateful."   
  
His men forced Yuri to his knees and spread his fingers apart on the muddy with blood dirt floor. Mikhail handed the knife down to his head of security, "the pinky and ring finger of each hand Boris then the tips of his thumbs."   
  
They took a blow tortch to the Yuri's hands as well. Then they removed the rest of the Sex toys from his body. He was bleeding from numerous locations and could no longer hold himself up.   
  
Asami had his men take Yuri to the back of the warehouse to clean him off. He was too weak and drugged to fight them. They removed the blood and muck and actually applied bandages and liquid tape to his most egregious injuries. When done they strapped another o ring with a larger dildo in to his mouth and packed him into a plastic animal crate. He had just enough room to lay curled up on his side.   
  
Asami, Fei Long, and Mikhail moved their table closer to the entrance. Asami did not want their next guest to get any muck on his shoes. His men brought the animal crate and set it on the ground hear the warehouse's double doors.   
  
Not long after they'd settled in the new location the sound of a large truck reached them from outside. Doors slammed and men speaking English could be heard shouting to each other. Two of Asami's men slid the double doors open standing beyond them was a brown haired American with green eyes a square jaw and dimples. He was wearing dusty blue jeans a snap button long sleeved cotton shirt, alligator cowboy boots and holding a dark wide brimmed Stetson with an alligator band and silver buckle.   
  
Asami rose from his seat when the man walked forward and held out his right hand. When the man shook it he said, "Welcome to the party, Nathon. I trust you found the place easily enough."   
  
"Found it easily enough, still had the devil's time getting these trucks up the road, though." He's Texas drawl made him hard to understand. Luckily both Fei Long and Mikhail spoke English well enough to make out what the man was saying. He continued, "Boss wants me to double check the animal before handing over pavement."   
  
Asami gestured to the crate, "I wouldn't expect less, Nathon. Here it is. Packed and ready for travel. Its accommodations are a little cramped but your boss sent me the dimensions of your cargo hold and I'm afraid this is the best we could do."   
  
Nathon walked around the cage smiling, "Proud one was it?"   
  
"Knowing this one; there is still a little that will need to be trained out of him. After the pictures I sent your boss spoke of breeding it. So we stopped just shy of gelding."   
  
Nathon nodded seriously, "Yes, well if it is too unruly the boss will geld the animal himself. He takes great pride in only offering his customers the best. In truth he almost didn't take this one at all."   
  
"Oh, he implied to me he was eager to get started." Asami had the audacity to look worried.   
  
"It was actually a last second decision. A long time Arab customer made a special request just after you called. Your specimen just happened to match the desired physical attributes. If the Arab hadn't called I'm not certain he'd have sent me out to collect." Nathan shook his head and signaled two men just outside the doors, "Load it up boys, our flight leaves in another two hours and we don't want to miss it."   
  
Two men dressed similarly to Nathon took Yuri's crate and loaded it onto the back of a large pickup truck. Four more men joined them in the back and Nathon shook Asami's hand a second time. "Boss man said to let you know that any more fine looking specimens like this you come across he'd be willing to look at them."   
  
Asami nodded, "I'll keep that in mind, Nathon. Have a safe trip back to Texas."   
  
"Will do." Nathon climbed into the truck and group drove back down the rutted dirt road.   
  
Fei long let out a breath before saying, "Just who was that and where is poor Yuri headed?"   
  
Asami laughed, "That was Nathon Hale. He's the forman of the XY Circle Cattle ranch."   
  
"let me get this straight," Fei asked, "You sold him to an American cattle ranch?"   
  
"Oh the cattle ranch is just a cover. They are a ranch but the big boss specializes in turning men and women like Yuri into sex slave for very peculiar owners."   
  
"I don't' understand, Asami you despise the flesh trade. You've constantly told me it's nothing more than a flimsy cover for human trafficking. How could you be involved in this?"   
  
Asami nodded and gestured to the trucks sending his men to start them back down the path. "I don't like the flesh trade Fei Long and were Nathon's Boss anyone else or more specifically dealt in any other type of people I'd have helped the US government shut him down years ago."   
  
He turned to his remaining men, "Finish up here and return to town." He then looked at Fei Long again. "The Boss only 'trains' sexual predators for sale to his clients. He particularly enjoys turning child molesters into what he calls the perfect domesticated animals. He only traffics with men and women who understand what they are getting and refuse to traffic in what the Boss calls actual humans."   
  
Asami shrugged, "It made me uncomfortable but what the Boss offered me in return for Yuri made it worth it."   
  
"And what pray tell what that?"   
  
Asami smiled, "The return of thirteen missing Japanese children between the ages of seven and sixteen." He watched as his men carefully drove the trucks back down the road. Several of the children were still bed bound and his special hospital boat was waiting for them at the wharves.   
  
Yasuo was waiting with an entire crew dedicated to caring for the children while they were reunited with their families or their new guardians were their families no longer existed or were found unfit to be parents. Asami would forever be amazed at the number of parents that traded their own children for cash or relieve their own debts.   
  
He looked back at Fei Long who had a thoughtful look on his face, "I'll see the two of you at the South African World trade conference in May. Take care."   
  
Now that this was done he had a Kitten to spoil.


	7. Lost and Found

Eleven months, four days, twenty-three hours, and fifty seven minutes since Asami ran through a parking deck and found his kitten stealing from his limo Asami stood in front of the floor to ceiling windows of his corporate office. It was his twenty-eighth birthday and though in years past he'd skipped celebrating the day this one would be different. His Kitten was throwing him a surprise party, though surprise was relative.  
  
To Akihito it had remained a secret and Asami would be certain to do his best at convincing the minx he was truly shocked. He'd done well so far having all but berated his trusted second, Kirishima about leaving an entire work evening free of appointments. He'd groused as he left the penthouse about how many deals he could make had Kirishima just bothered to pen the people that wanted his time in.  
  
Akihito had been unable to hide his smile as he slipped on his tennis shoes and headed to school. His boy was approaching sixteen and his excellent health and physical recovery was nearly complete. He'd shot up nearly four inches in the past six months and his general physician said he looked to be perfectly on track with his height and weight.  
  
He'd made several friends at the school, though none were of the elite attendees. All four were students studying at the private school on scholarships. Taketo was there for the Math program and Kei had already started influencing the boy to study statistics. Kei wanted a trust worthy statistician to help test new financial markets before they risked real money.  
  
Kou was attending on an Art Scholarship and Asami himself was talking to the young man about a career in graphic advertising. The boy however was enamored of creating art for video games. Asami had pondered investing in a couple just so he'd have influence in the boy's choices. Kei however had talked him out of it. Kou may come off as clueless but Kei insisted he had a good head on his shoulders and would probably outgrow his gaming desires once he reached college.  
  
Yoshida was heading to the military. It was his desire to follow in his father's footsteps. He planned on serving for four year, maybe five, and then join the Tokyo police. Kazumi was hoping to catch him between the two and make him an offer he couldn't' refuse.  
  
Asami was exceedingly glad his Kitten had found such stable and delightful friends. With proper guidance they'd remain close for years to come. He wanted that for his boy. He'd not had any as a child and deserved good friends now. Still Asami could do without the girlfriend.  
  
His kitten wouldn't tell him why he was 'dating' the girl. They rarely acted like girlfriend and boyfriend. In truth they were more buddies with Nomura Hotaru often acting more like one of the boys than most girls her age. She wore bike shorts under her school skirt and ran parkor with the boy as often as she was able to. She was attending the prestigious school on a Foreign Language Scholarship, she spoke and read four besides Japanese, English, French, Italian and strangely Russian. Additionally, for all that she was a tomboy, she was the one friend that kept the others in line when it came to homework and grades.  
  
Still her presence irked Asami in a way he was unable to explain and he continued to ignore Kirishima's requests to take her on in their foreign affairs department as an intern translator. He just didn't want the girl to have any more reasons to be around his Kitten. Not that Asami would ever admit as much to either Kei or Akihito.  
  
His Kitten had also seemingly settled on a future career. He wanted to take pictures. Asami was eager to encourage his gift and gift it was. Several of the boy's amateur photos were blown up and graced Sion's walls. Asami always received complements from his visitors on them and each was saddened when told the photographer was not readily available to meet nor were any of his photos for sale at the time. Asami only had them due to personal connections.  
  
Asami was not however eager to allow his Kitten to pursue the other part of his desired profession, photojournalism. Akihito, after receiving accolades by the local constabulary for his photo of a purse snatcher, has become determined to out the worst of society through his camera's viewfinder. Some of the types that made his boy's 'worst of society' list however were Asami's clients. He was still trying to figure out how to be supportive and still steer the boy away from his own activities.  
  
Someone knocked on his office door and he turned to see Kirishima cross the threshold between the large office and the small hallway. Kirishima was carrying a stack of folders tucked under his left arm and a small box in his right hand. He smiled and sat the box and folders on Asami's desk. "I've brought the last of the paperwork and," he tapped the top of the box, "this has arrived from Fei Long and Mikhail. The tag says Happy Birthday."  
  
Asami crossed the room and sat. He pulled the paperwork over and then the box. He'd sent Fei Long a specialize vaping ring to fit in the bowl of his pipe along with several unique flavors he thought the Chinese leader would enjoy for his twenty-first birthday and a fine set of Lalique crystal stemware to Mikhail on his twenty-seventh. The two had promised to do even better for his birthday, though Asami had actually laughed at the boast.  
  
He pulled the ribbon free and removed the wrapped box top. Inside nestled in silk was a small USD thumb drive. He removed it and glanced at Kei who smiled and said. "I was promised it held no harmful files."  
  
Asami grunted, "I'm surprised you trusted them."  
  
"Well Yoh, did confirm he put the contents together so I'm not worried."  
  
With that Asami inserted the drive into his laptop and opened the file folder. Inside were several architecture diagrams. Hospitals, schools, dorms, and trade centers filled the folder. There was one document. It was named 'Read First'; Asami clicked it open.  
  
'Read First' was a fully funded ten year plan to build the attached buildings and campuses across the known world. These campuses would treat, educate, and house children who suffered from abuse. The locations were in Japan, Hong Kong, Saint Petersburg, Rome, Chicago, and Abuja, the capital of Nigira, according to the document. There were also plans for expanding the program along with how locations were determined and how they would be monitored. The documents also outlined the expectations of the national governments where the locations were homed and the exacting standards for each member of the personnel.  
  
The first of the locations would be breaking ground in Tokyo in May of the coming year. Asami was listed as the CEO of Koneko no Pureimeito (Kitten't Playmates); the charity's logo was of a small child sitting with a tiny cat in his arms. Asami laughed and reviewed the financial paperwork before electronically signing the final twelve pages. He wasn't certain he would be able to top this. He had his work cut out for him in the coming year.  
  
Asami saved the documents and pulled the thumb drive saying, "We shouldn't let their hard work go to waste. Make sure these get filed before the week is out."  
  
He handed the drive to Kirishima who nodded. "It will get done before the office closed tomorrow." He left then knowing Asami wanted to get all the paperwork done before his party. Asami had taken the following two days and week off and arranged for Akihito to miss school. They were taking a trip to Saas Fee, Switzerland where he was going to get Akihito skiing lessons. They'd be gone for a full seven days and Kirishima was still squaring away the boy's assignments from his teachers and the instructors for the Skiing and snowboarding. He had his own tasks to finish if Asami wanted the surprise trip to go off without a hitch.  
  
After Kei left him alone he made relatively quick work of the folders. Each was filled with accounting paperwork including tax documents he had to sign because the financial quarter had just ended. Twelve subsidiaries of Sion were performing above expectations. Three were holding steady. One was showing signs of decline. It was a club he'd purchased at a discount from a rival. It was in a perfectly good spot but the clientele left much to be desired. Perhaps now was a good time to let that young man hire from the entertainment division looking to change careers have the chance he was seeking. Sudo Shu was a promising manager if his success with the models he guided was any indication. Asami wrote down to interview the young man as a potential manager in his notes for Kei and closed the next to last folder.  
  
The last folder held a manila folder. Asami carefully cut the envelop open and pulled out the two pieces of paper it contained. He spread the out on his desk and read them carefully.  
  
An hour later Kirishima returned to pick up the paperwork he'd left behind earlier and inform Asami that his young charge was on his way to Sion to pick him up for what was supposed to be a quiet dinner at Asami's favorite Japanese restaurant, but was actually a surprise party which included all of Akihito's school friends, Kei and his wife, Kazumi and his new lover whom neither Kei nor Asami had yet met, and several foreigners, Mikhail and Fei Long were bringing their own entourages.  
  
He knocked and entered before any answer was sounded. He crossed the room and gathered the closed folders on the desk noticing that the last one still lay open though empty on the large expanse of wood. He glanced at his boss and noticed two sheets of paper clinched tightly in Asami's left hand. His right was clenched as well and rested on the bullet proof glass of his floor to ceiling window like he'd punched the pane at some point.  
  
Kei had to clear his throat twice before his boss and lifelong friend turned around to face him.  
  
Asami stood at the window wishing he could put another bullet through Daichi's head. The man had gotten the last laugh. Asami's Kitten since early last August was not Takaba Akihito. The papers in his hands had explained that the fingerprints were nearly identical a rare but natural phenomenon in nature. However the boy Asami had registered as the missing son of Takaba Shiro and Takaba Kiko was instead Miyahira Seiki a missing four year old from Okaya in Nagano. Who's maternal grandparents had reported missing when his father failed to return him after taking the boy out to the park during his schedule visitation.  
  
The boy had been pulled from his parent's home due to neglect not long after his mother had died in a tragic car accident. According to the three short paragraphs about his life, Seiki had been not quiet two when his mother died. His father's parents were dead and the boy's maternal grandparents had lived to far away to help with raising the child and allowing him to live in the apartment with his father. They visited as often as they could but each visit only led them to believe the child should live permanently with them. Japan's officials agreed and removed the boy from his father's custody and entrusted him to his grandparents. The father got visitation rights one weekend a month.  
  
Not long after he was reported missing authorities found the body of the boy's father in his apartment. The man had apparently hung himself. The boy had never been found. The grandparents both died in the following eight years. Like the Takaba Akihito, had he lived, Seiki had no living family.  
  
Asami punched the glass again. The brief pain focused his thoughts. His Kitten was not who Asami had assumed him to be, but he was so very close. The differences were slight; it was Seiki's father and not his mother he got his blonde hair and blue eyes from. Akihito had been right handed but it appeared that even early on Seiki had shown signs of being ambidextrous. Asami had believed Seiki's slightly lighter hair was the result of growing older, but it was because they weren't the same boy.  
  
No, Miyahira Seiki wasn't Takaba Akihito. He was however Asami's Kitten. The wealthy, egotistical, bastard, that Asami was, refused to give the boy up not that the boy as Miyahira Seiki had any where to go anyway. He clenched the paper harder this information never had to leave his office. He would send Kei to remove it and the fact that a DNA test was even run from the company's computers.  
  
He heard Kei call his name and turned. He wasn't certain what his face showed be he quickly schooled his features and handed Kei the papers in his hand, "Akihito is never to know. No one is ever to know. Finder Keepers, Kei."  
  
Kei glanced thorough the papers then nodded in understanding.  
  
Asami moved to his office door. His Kitten was picking him up for dinner and he had to prepare to be surprised.


End file.
